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THE   NEW  TESTAMENT  IN   THE 
CHRISTIAN    CHURCH 


^T»^^ 


THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 


IN  THE 


CHRISTIAN  CHURCH 


3EiDil)t  Hertures 

BY 

EDWARD    CALDWELL   MOORE 

PROFESSOR    OF    THEOLOGY    IN    HARVARD    UNIVERSITY 


THE    MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1904 

All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1904, 
By  the  macmillan  company. 


Set  up,  clectrotyped,  and  published  January,  1904. 


Nortoocl!  ^rf28 

J.  8.  Cashing  &  'o.  —  IJfrv.ick  &  Smith  Co. 

Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO    MY    WIFE 

WITHOUT  WHOSE  ENCOURAGEMENT  THE  STUDIES 

WHICH  HAVE  ISSUED  IN  THIS  BOOK  WOULD 

NEVER  HAVE  BEEN  KEPT   UP 


PREFACE 

These  Lectures  were  delivered  in  Boston  in 
March  and  April,  1903,  before  the  Lowell  Insti- 
tute. The  material  has  been  somewhat  increased, 
but  the  Lectures  are  published  substantially  as 
they  were  delivered.  Even  the  form  of  personal 
address  has  not  been  changed. 

It  is  not  claimed  that  the  Lectures  make  contri- 
bution of  great  magnitude  to  this  discussion.  But 
the  problem  has  been  thought  through.  Material 
has  been  taken  with  freedom  from  such  works  as 
those  of  Zahn  upon  the  history  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment Canon,  of  Harnack  and  Kriiger  upon  the 
history  of  the  early  Christian  literature,  of  Holtz- 
mann  and  Jiilicher  upon  Introduction  to  the  New 
Testament,  and  of  Caspari  and  Kattenbusch  upon 
the  Apostles'  Creed.  The  debt  to  Jiilicher  is  espe- 
^  cially  great.  In  the  Sixth  and  Seventh  Lectures 
the  direct  endeavor  has  been  to  present,  for  pur- 
poses of  our  comparison,  what  is  substantially 
Harnack's  interpretation  of  the  beginnings  of 
Christian  doctrine  and  Sohm's  theory  of  the 
origin  of  church  government. 

There  is  no  book  in  English  which  presents  the 
results  of  the  labors  of  scholars  during  the  last 

vii 


354812 


Vlll  PREFACE 

fifteen  years  in  the  study  of  the  growth  of  the 
New  Testament  Canon  and  in  that  of  the  attribu- 
tion to  the  early  Christian  writings  of  a  scriptural 
authority.  Nor  is  there  a  book  in  any  language  in 
which  these  three  things,  the  Canon  of  the  New 
Testament,  the  Organization  of  the  Church  for 
Government,  and  the  Rule  of  Faith,  are  compared 
in  their  development,  and  treated  with  the  purpose 
of  making  each,  in  its  evolution,  throw  light  upon 
the  others,  and  all  together  illustrate  the  nature 
of  that  authority  which  was  ascribed  to  them  all. 
It  was  the  freshness  of  the  topic,  when  taken  in 
this  way,  which  led  the  author  to  choose  this  sub- 
ject for  the  Lowell  Lectures.  It  is  the  lack  of 
literature  in  EngHsh  in  which,  in  any  wider  way, 
the  materials  of  the  discussion  are  brought  to- 
gether which  has  led  him  to  feel  that  the  publi- 
cation of  the  Lectures  might  be  of  use. 

Judgments  may  differ  as  to  the  best  possible 
selection  from  the  mass  of  material  at  hand.  The 
difficulty  of  the  task  is  to  keep  the  thing  in  bold 
outline,  and  yet  not  to  convey  a  false  notion 
through  suppression  of  details.  No  undue  zeal 
is  felt  on  behalf  of  opinions  which  are  here  can- 
didly expressed  or  everywhere  plainly  implied  con- 
cerning some  disputed  matters.  It  is  hoped  only 
to  furnish  the  reader  with  material  for  the  forma- 
tion, criticism,  or  confirmation  of  his  own  opinions. 

The  hold  of  the  Scripture  over  a  man's  mind  is 
a  very  different  thing  from  the  theory  which  a 
man  holds  concerning  the  Scripture.      Neverthe- 


PREFACE  IX 

less,  the  Scripture  cannot  long  maintain  its  hold 
over  the  minds,  at  least  of  cultivated  people,  if 
they  hold  a  theory  of  Scripture  which  is  at  vari- 
ance with  the  other  elements  of  their  cultivation. 
The  power  of  the  Scripture  is,  fortunately,  not  the 
same  thing  with  the  explanation  which  men  from 
age  to  age  have  given  of  that  power.  But  what 
we  wish  to  know  is  this :  What  are  the  facts  con- 
cerning the  Scripture  of  which  we,  in  common 
with  so  many  other  men  of  all  ages,  have  felt  the 
power  ?  It  is  only  upon  the  basis  of  these  facts 
that  a  theory  of  Scripture  can  be  framed. 

Thanks  are  due  to  the  Trustee  of  the  Lowell 
Institute  for  his  kind  invitation  and  for  considera- 
tion shown  in  the  postponement  of  the  delivery  of 
the  course  for  a  year,  and  to  Professor  George 
F.  Moore  for  valuable  aid  in  the  revision  of  the 
sheets. 

Cambridge,  Massachusetts, 
September  8, 1903. 


CONTENTS 


LECTURE   I 

PAGE 

The  Authorities  of  the  Early  Christians  .        .        i 


LECTURE   II 

The  Witness  of  the  Earliest  Christian  Litera- 
ture TO  the  New  Testament  ....      39 

LECTURE   III 

The  New  Testament  at  the  End  of  the  Second 

Century 79 

LECTURE   IV 
The  Closing  of  the  Canon  in  the  West      .        .121 

LECTURE  V 

The  Closing  of  the  Canon  in  the  East.     The 

Renaissance  and  the  Reformation         .        .165 

LECTURE    VI 

The   Canonization   and    the   Origin  of  Church 

Government 211 

xi 


xii  CONTENTS 

LECTURE   VII 

PAGS 

The  Canonization   and   the  Beginnings   of  the 

History  of  Doctrine 259 

LECTURE  VIII 

The     Idea     of     Authority     in     the     Christian 

Church 3^9 

Index 3^1 


LECTURE    I 

THE   AUTHORITIES   OF  THE   EARLY 
CHRISTIANS 


LECTURE    I 

THE   AUTHORITIES    OF  THE   EARLY 
CHRISTIANS 

Christians  hold  in  reverence  a  small  collection 
of  writings  which  together  bear  the  somewhat  note- 
worthy title,  The  New  Testament.  The  writings 
are  twenty-seven  in  number.  They  would  seem  to 
have  had  at  least  ten  different  authors.  They 
are  of  varied  sort,  and  some  of  them  bear  plain 
traces  of  the  occasions  to  which  they  severally  owe 
their  origin. 

There  are  letters.  Thirteen  of  these  purport  to 
be  letters  of  one  man,  a  missionary,  to  churches  in 
which  he  was  interested  or  to  individuals  whom  he 
knew.  There  is  a  book  of  poetical  and  prophetical 
material,  of  a  style  familiar  in  the  Judaism  of  the 
period.  There  are  four  biographical  sketches. 
Three  of  these  are  closely  related  the  one  to  the 
other,  and  present  in  simple  fashion  teachings  of 
Jesus  of  Nazareth  and  facts  concerning  his  life. 
One  of  them  is  full  also  of  profound  reflection 
upon  that  life  and  teaching.  There  is  a  brief 
history  of  the  progress  of  the  new  faith  from  the 
capital  of  the  Jewish  religion  to  the  centre  of  the 
Gentile  world. 

3 


4  AUTHORITIES    OF    THE   EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

No  one  of  these  writings  is  from  the  hand  of 
the  Founder  of  the  Christian  reUgion.  Nor  does 
the  substance  of  any  one  of  them  claim  to  have 
been  Uterally  taken  down  by  a  hearer,  as  the  reve- 
lations of  Mohammed  are  said  to  have  been  taken 
down  from  his  lips  and  afterward  put  together  to 
form  the  Koran.  They  were  none  of  them,  not 
even  the  Fourth  Gospel,  written  directly  to  eluci- 
date the  system  of  the  Master,  in  the  manner  in 
which  Plato  is  deemed  to  have  written  certain 
dialogues  to  elucidate  the  system  of  his  master, 
Socrates. 

The  production  of  by  far  the  larger  part,  at  all 
events,  of  the  New  Testament  writings  covers  a 
period  of  considerably  less  than  two  generations. 
In  this  respect  the  collection  presents  a  marked 
contrast  to  the  Old  Testament.  Here  the  interval 
between  the  composition  of  the  first  books  and  of 
the  last  is  probably  seven  centuries.  If  we  should 
reckon  from  the  supposed  date  of  the  earliest  docu- 
ment embedded  in  the  Hexateuch  to  the  Book  of 
Daniel  or  the  last  Psalm,  we  should  have,  of  course, 
an  interval  much  greater.  The  more  easy  was 
it  for  men,  in  later  time,  because  of  this  relative 
shortness  of  the  historic  perspective  of  the  New 
Testament  collection,  to  lose  the  historical  sense 
about  these  New  Testament  writings,  and  to  come 
to  view  all  that  which  they  portrayed  as  a  flat 
picture,  and  not  rather  as  a  deep  vista.  Some- 
thing of  this  sort  had  already  taken  place  in 
the  minds  of   many  in  the  synagogue   regarding 


AUTHORITIES   OF  THE  EARLY   CHRISTIANS  5 

the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  despite  the  far  greater 
length  of  the  period  which  that  revelation  had 
involved. 

It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  the  Christian 
church,  even  the  Gentile  part  of  it,  inherited  the 
Jewish  Scriptures  of  the  Old  Testament,  so  to 
say,  ready  made.  It  then  proceeded,  by  a  most 
interesting  and  wonderful  process,  covering  an 
interval  of  more  than  two  hundred  years,  to  make 
certain  of  its  own  earliest  documents  into  a  New 
Testament,  and  to  place  that  beside  the  Hebrew 
sacred  book.  It  is  the  process  of  the  making 
of  these  new  Scriptures,  or  rather,  more  accu- 
rately, it  is  the  process  of  the  investing  of 
certain  perfectly  natural  and  incidental  and  occa- 
sional writings  of  the  earliest  Christianity  with 
the  character  of  Scripture,  which  it  is  the  main 
purpose  of  these  lectures  to  set  forth. 

The  Old  Testament  writings  were  also  the  litera- 
ture which  had  been  incidental  to  the  progress  of  a 
great  religious  movement,  viewed  by  the  men  of 
later  ages  in  the  light  of  that  divine  inspiration  of 
a  book  for  the  guidance  of  the  life  of  the  race, 
which  is  implied  in  the  use  of  the  word  Scripture. 
But  beyond  pointing  out  this  parallel,  we  have 
nothing  to  do  with  those  writings.  As  regards 
the  New  Testament  books  we  may  say,  that  to 
give  an  account  of  the  making  of  each  individual 
work,  to  discuss  in  detail  its  authorship,  its 
time,  place,  circumstance,  that  also  would  be  a 
task  different  from  that  which  we  propose.     Some 


O  AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

knowledge  of  these  facts  is  assumed  in  all  that  we 
have  to  say.  It  is  the  making  of  these  twenty- 
seven  little  writings  of  the  earliest  Christianity  to 
be  Scripture,  it  is  the  process  of  their  being  gath- 
ered together  into  a  collection  and  of  their  coming 
to  be  viewed  as  inspired  and  sacred  writings,  which 
is  our  main  theme. 

The  peculiar  rabbinical  way  of  conceiving  the 
inspiration  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  earliest  Chris- 
tians brought  along  with  them  from  the  synagogue. 
They  impressed  that  mode  of  thought  concerning 
the  Old  Testament  even  upon  Gentile  Christians 
who  had  had  little  or  nothing  to  do  with  the  syna- 
gogue. The  mode  of  thought  itself  was  not  alto- 
gether foreign  to  the  Gentile  mind.  The  Gentiles 
also  were  familiar,  in  a  general  way,  with  the  no- 
tion of  books  of  oracles,  words  of  God  for  the  guid- 
ance of  man.  They  also  were  familiar  with  the 
thought  of  an  inspiration  which  took  the  place, 
less  or  more,  of  a  man's  own  intellectual  initiative, 
which  suspended  the  working  of  a  man's  faculties 
and  left  him  but  the  instrument  of  utterance  of  the 
god. 

But  this  way  of  regarding  the  Old  Testament, 
when  it  came,  at  the  end  of  the  second  century,  to 
be  applied  to  the  books  which  now  constitute  the 
New  Testament,  gave  to  these  books  also  a  sacred- 
ness  different  from  that  sacredness  which  for 
Christians  they  had  always  had  through  dealing 
with  the  person  and  teachings  of  Jesus.  It  gave 
them  an  authority  which  was,  to  say  the  least,  of  a 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS  7 

different  sort  from  that  authority  which  they  had 
always  possessed  through  treating  of  the  origins 
of  Christianity.  And  this  sacredness  as  Scrip- 
ture, this  authority  as  Canon,  once  it  was  achieved, 
would  perhaps  effectually  have  prevented  any  man 
from  the  middle,  say,  of  the  sixth  to  the  middle  of 
the  fourteenth  centuries,  from  ever  raising  a  ques- 
tion as  to  how  these  books  came  to  be  a  Canon  and 
to  have  a  scriptural  authority.  And  perhaps  we 
should  add  that  during  that  period  the  state  of 
historical  knowledge  would  have  prevented  the 
answering  of  the  question,  even  if  it  had  been 
raised. 

Under  the  influence  of  the  revival  of  learning 
and  in  the  fresh  impulse  of  the  Reformation,  men 
like  Luther  and  Calvin  saw  the  thing  more  nearly 
in  its  true  light.  But  the  men  of  the  second,  and 
still  more  of  the  third,  generations  of  Protestant- 
ism, in  their  effort  to  ground  an  external  authority 
of  the  Bible  which  should  offset  the  infallible  au- 
thority of  the  church,  underv/ent  a  great  reaction. 
In  their  emphasis  upon  the  divine  side  of  the  Scrip- 
ture they  lost  sight  almost  wholly  of  the  facts  per- 
taining to  the  human  origin  and  history  of  the 
Book.  And  the  notion,  not  always  clearly  thought 
through,  was  yet  widely  prevalent  until  after  the 
beginning  of  the  nineteenth  century,  that  the 
church  had  always  had,  since  the  Apostles'  day, 
a  New  Testament  Canon  placed,  perhaps  by  the 
Apostles  themselves,  side  by  side  with  the  Old 
Testament,  and  possessed  of  an  authority  equal  to 


8  AUTHORITIES   OF   THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

that  of  the  Old  Testament  and,  implicitly,  even 
greater  than  that  of  the  Old  Testament. 

To  many  thoughtful  readers,  even  now,  it  may 
never  have  occurred  that  the  literature  which  we 
know  collectively  as  the  New  Testament  cannot 
have  borne  to  the  men  of  the  first,  or  even  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  second,  centuries  the  semblance 
which  it  bears  to  us.  To  them  it  was  really  a  lit- 
erature, a  more  or  less  fugitive  literature,  which 
was  produced  merely  as  one  of  the  incidents  of  a 
religious  movement.  This  fact  lies  right  on  the 
face  of  the  works  themselves.  So  truly  are  the 
letters  of  Paul  but  the  substitute  for  the  personal 
presence  of  the  Apostle  himself  that  one  gathers 
the  impression  that,  had  the  Apostle  been  able  to 
be  everywhere  present,  we  should  have  had  no 
letters.  Had  the  concrete  situation  in  a  given 
community,  at  the  moment,  been  other  than  it  was, 
the  letter  would  be  different  from  what  it  is.  So 
palpably  are  the  written  Gospels  the  deposit  from 
an  oral  tradition,  and  but  the  substitute  for  the 
personal  testimony  of  apostolic  men  to  that  which 
they  had  seen  with  their  eyes  and  their  hands  had 
handled  of  the  Word  of  Life,  that  we  are  prepared 
to  find  that  written  Gospels  then  first  begin  to 
appear  when  the  ranks  of  these  men  are  being 
thinned. 

The  Christian  movement  is  great  and  infinitely 
significant  as  we  look  back  upon  it.  It  had  even 
in  its  own  time  a  certain  sublime  self-conscious- 
ness  and   moral   forecast.     But  its  adherents  as- 


AUTHORITIES    OF   THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS  9 

suredly  did  not  live  and  make  literature  in  that 
kind  of  prevision  of  the  long  course  of  history, 
which  has  sometimes  been  supposed.  If  there 
was  one  opinion  which  was  widely  current  among 
them,  it  was  that  the  course  of  history  was  not 
going  to  be  long.  The  sporadic  literature  of  this 
movement  was  at  first  nowhere  collected,  nor  does 
there  seem  to  have  been,  at  first,  any  disposition 
thus  to  collect  it.  We  have  to  think  of  the  letters 
as  remaining,  for  a  time  at  least,  the  private  prop- 
erty of  the  churches  to  which  they  were  addressed. 
The  earliest  Gospels  seem  to  have  taken  shape, 
and  in  some  cases  even  to  have  drawn  their  names, 
from  the  tradition  as  it  was  current  in  different 
local  communities.  The  literature  which  we  know 
as  the  canonical  was  only  slowly  sifted  out  from 
other  literature  not  wholly  unlike  itself.  The  sift- 
ing was,  as  we  shall  see,  a  purely  historical  and 
somewhat  uncertain  process.  The  principle  of  the 
sifting  was  not  always  clearly  apprehended,  nor 
even  always  correctly  applied.  The  books,  mean- 
time, had,  indeed,  the  authority  of  the  Lord  whose 
word  and  spirit  they  enshrined,  and  of  the  Apos- 
tles whose  testimony  they  embodied.  But  they 
had  not  yet  the  authority  of  Scripture  as  such. 
That  is  to  say,  the  books,  as  books,  were  not  yet 
regarded  as  on  the  same  level  with  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. They  had  inspiration ;  but  their  central 
inspiration  was  the  Christ  himself.  In  them  spoke 
the  Holy  Spirit;  but  in  the  sense  that  in  their 
authors  dwelt  a  holy  spirit  which  prompted  all  the 


10       AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

Other  things  which  the  men  did.  It  was  the  living 
Christ  who  stood  beside  and  above  the  Old  Tes- 
tament Scriptures  as  the  early  Christian  man's 
authority.  It  was  one  hundred  and  fifty  years 
after  Jesus'  death  before  writings  concerning 
him  were  clearly  apprehended  as  new  Scriptures, 
and  fully  took  that  place. 

Here  comes  out  clearly  our  definition  of  Scrip- 
ture. By  Scripture  we  mean  such  writings  as 
have  obtained  in  religious  communities  the  repute 
of  a  di\'ine  authorship,  direct  or  indirect,  absolute, 
or  concurrent  in  some  way  with  the  human 
authorship,  and  have  enjoyed  unique  esteem 
and  exercised  authority  in  consequence  of  this 
repute.  We  have  used  the  word  Canon  many 
times.  We  may  attempt  to  define  that  term  also. 
The  word  Canon  means,  primarily  a  reed,  a  meas- 
uring rule,  then  a  standard.  As  the  root  first 
occurs  in  Christian  writers,  it  is  always  in  verbal 
and  participial  forms.  It  seems  to  imply  nothing 
more  than  that  the  works  referred  to  as  "canon- 
ized "  constituted  a  class,  the  class,  namely,  of 
works  widely  in  sacred  use  among  the  Christians, 
acknowledged  by  the  Christians.  Precisely  in 
this  way,  the  Alexandrine  critics  of  classic  litera- 
ture had  used  the  phrase  to  describe  works 
acknowledged  as  representing  the  standard  of 
taste.  Later,  the  word  Canon  came  to  signify 
a  ruling  by  ecclestiastical  authority.  Specifically, 
it  meant  the  decision  that  such  and  such  books, 
and  those  only,  should  form  the  accredited  body 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS         II 

of  New  Testament  literature.  And  finally,  the 
word  came  to  be  used  of  the  body  of  literature 
which  was  thus  exclusively  accredited. 

It  has  been  common  to  assume  that  the  Bible 
made  the  church.  If  what  we  have  been  saying 
is  true,  it  is  clear,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  church 
made  the  Bible.  The  religious  community  was 
before  its  documents.  It  received  the  impulse 
which  made  it  a  community  from  persons.  Only 
later  did  it  seek  to  embalm  something  of  that  per- 
sonal influence  in  documents,  and  then,  still  later, 
came  to  shape  its  life  by  those  documents,  which 
it  now  apprehended  as  its  law.  The  church  made 
the  Bible.  And  just  how  the  Christian  church 
made  its  part  of  the  Bible,  how  it  came  to  take 
certain  literature  identified  with  its  earlier  stages 
and  its  most  significant  personages  and  to  invest 
that  literature  with  the  character  of  Bible  —  this,  as 
we  said,  is  the  precise  question  the  understanding 
of  which  it  is  earnestly  hoped  that  these  lectures 
may  further. 

The  moment  we  have  put  it  in  this  way  it  be- 
comes evident  that  we  are  to  deal  with  a  fact,  or 
rather  with  a  long  and  complex  series  of  facts, 
and  with  a  subtle  historical  process,  most  interest- 
ing in  itself,  and  concerning  which  we  must  own 
that  few  have  had  greater  influence  upon  the  whole 
life  of  the  world. 

Students  of  comparative  religion  are  familiar 
with  the  fact  that  religions  other  than  Judaism 
and  Christianity  have  shown  a  tendency,  at  some 


12        AUTHORITIES    OF   THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

time  in  their  history,  to  canonize  their  earlier  liter- 
ature. These  early  writings  may  have  come  into 
existence  in  the  simplest  and  most  natural  man- 
ner imaginable.  They  are  the  deposit  of  the 
specific  ideas  of  the  faith  and  the  vehicle  of  the 
influence  —  or  at  least  of  the  perpetuation  of  the  in- 
fluence—  of  commanding  personalities  associated 
with  the  origin  of  the  faith.  But  by  and  by,  either 
by  slow  process  or,  perhaps,  through  sudden  emer- 
gency, these  writings  are  found  to  have  assumed 
a  representative  character  and  a  regulative  force 
quite  different  from  that  simple  esteem  and  natural 
influence  which  had  always  been  accorded  them. 
Mohammedanism,  indeed,  illustrates  neither  the 
natural  evolution  of  such  a  literature  nor  the  or- 
ganic process  of  its  canonization.  Mohammedan- 
ism sprang  up  among  a  people  whose  leaders,  at 
least,  had  the  example  of  both  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments  before  their  eyes.  Mohammedanism 
was  what  has  been  called  a  book-religion  from  the 
beginning.  That  is  to  say,  it  was  provided  by  its 
founder,  within  his  own  lifetime,  with  a  revelation 
which  was  intended  to  be  its  specific  sacred  docu- 
ment. The  Koran  was  to  be  to  its  adherents 
what  Old  and  New  Testaments  were  to  Jews  and 
Christians.  For  converts  it  was  completely  to 
supplant  these  or  any  other  writings  of  the  sort. 
In  contrast  it  is  to  be  observed  that  for  the  Chris- 
tians the  New  Testament  never  took  the  place 
of  the  Old.  At  most,  it  took  a  place  beside  the 
Old  Testament,  or,  if  you  choose,  beyond  it,  as 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        1 3 

the  further  stage,  the  completion  of  that  revela- 
tion which  the  other  had  contained. 

But  as  we  were  saying,  the  usual  order  of 
events  is  different  from  that  which  we  have  thus 
observed  in  the  case  of  Mohammedanism.  The 
normal  case  is  this.  Writings  which,  outwardly, 
have  had  the  most  natural  origin  as  incidental  to 
the  progress  of  a  religious  movement  gather  to 
themselves  a  reverence,  not  necessarily  greater 
than  that  which  men  had  for  them  from  the  first, 
but  certainly  different  from  that  earlier  reverence. 
Confucianism,  Zoroastrianism,  Buddhism,  each  in 
its  own  way,  illustrates  this  law.  Those  docu- 
ments which,  however  naturally  they  may  seem 
to  have  come  into  being,  are  deemed  by  the  men 
of  the  later  time  to  be  the  'original  and  character- 
istic records  of  the  faith,  are  collected  into  a  body 
of  literature,  which  is  then  held  sacred  and  apart 
from  all  other  literature.  This  new  sacredness 
comes  to  attach  quite  as  much  to  the  collection, 
as  such,  as  to  the  individual  documents  which 
comprise  the  collection.  In  fact,  the  new  sacred- 
ness may  come  to  be  reflected  back  upon  a  given 
document  simply  because  it  is  comprised  in  the 
collection,  men  never  asking  how  it  came  thus  to 
be  comprised  in  the  collection.  This  new  sacred- 
ness tends  to  obscure  differences  among  the  docu- 
ments which  were  once  clearly  felt.  In  truth,  all 
the  facts  pertaining  to  the  human  origin  of  the 
books  tend,  for  the  beUever,  to  retreat  into  the 
background   behind    the   overwhelming   sense   of 


14        AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

the  divine  guidance  of  the  beHever's  cause,  which 
guidance  these  books  record,  and  of  which  they 
enshrine  something  of  the  creative  force. 

It  is  not  that  the  religious  community  has  sud- 
denly invented  a  treasure  which  it  will  henceforth 
find  valuable  to  possess.  But  it  has  suddenly 
become  conscious  of  the  treasure  which  in  this 
literature  it  has  always  possessed.  Future  ages 
come  to  regard  these  documents  as  alone  setting 
forth  the  pure  idea  and  feeling,  as  incarnating  the 
primary  impulse  of  the  faith.  These  alone  re- 
cord with  original  authority  the  facts  to  which 
the  adherents  of  the  faith  refer,  and  preserve  the 
tenets  from  which  they  may  not  depart.  Nay 
more — and  whether  the  human  authors  were  aware 
of  it  or  not — these  writings  of  theirs  are  now  seen 
to  have  come  into  existence  under  a  divine  pur- 
pose and  inspiration,  in  order  that  the  need  of 
future  ages  might  be  thus  fulfilled. 

The  literature  of  the  Christian  origins,  as  we 
said,  is  not  alone  in  having  traversed  this  course. 
But  in  the  case  of  the  most  of  the  sacred  litera- 
tures, in  some  measure  even  in  the  case  of  the 
Jewish  literature,  the  process  is  obscure.  The 
documents  themselves  often  reach  far  back  toward 
the  dawn  of  history.  And  even  the  later  pro- 
cess of  their  canonization  cannot  always  be  traced. 
It  may  cover  long  intervals  of  time,  and  have  left 
no  record.  In  the  case  of  the  Christian  Htera- 
ture,  on  the  contrary,  the  thing  happens  at  the 
very  heart  of  civilization.     When  it  begins  to  take 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        1 5 

place  at  all,  it  takes  place  with  astonishing  rapid- 
ity and  leaves  abundant  evidence.  It  transpires, 
so  to  say,  in  the  full  light  of  day.  This  is  not 
the  least  interesting  aspect  of  the  study  which 
we  have  begun,  that  is,  its  aspect,  as  furnishing  a 
basis  for  inference  concerning  the  history  of  other 
religions. 

In  the  large  sense  of  a  growing  feeling  for  the 
treasure  which,  in  a  certain  portion  of  its  early 
literature,  the  Christian  church  possessed,  the 
church  may  be  said  to  have  begun  the  process  of 
canonization  very  early.  It  is  not  easy  to  say 
how  early  a  vital  process  does  begin.  The  Chris- 
tian community  was  moving  in  an  unconscious  way 
toward  a  goal  long  before  it  deliberately  set  itself 
that  goal.  That  goal  was  the  sharp  separation  of 
a  certain  portion  of  the  early  Christian  Hterature, 
as  inspired  and  sacred,  from  all  other  literature, 
as  uninspired,  if  not  profane.  The  Christians 
felt  that  separation  long  before  they  declared 
it  or  made  a  duty  of  furthering  it.  The  church 
had,  in  fact,  a  Canon  long  before  it  had  any 
decrees  concerning  the  Canon.  The  church  had 
a  Canon  before  it  had  the  idea  of  a  Canon.  But, 
if  we  may  be  allowed  the  paradox,  the  earliest 
Christian  Canon  was  nothing  written.  It  was  the 
tradition  of  the  words  of  Christ.  And  indeed,  if  we 
should  go  still  further  back,  we  should  have  to  say 
that  it  was  Christ  himself  who  took  the  authorita- 
tive place.  Documents,  later,  took  that  place  only 
because  they  alone  seemed  to  enshrine  the  Christ. 


l6       AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

Primarily,  the  literary  impulse  was  foreign  to 
Christianity.  It  received  no  such  impulse  from 
Jesus,  who  wrote  but  once  that  we  have  record  of, 
and  then  in  sand.  It  was  not  likely  to  receive  the 
literary  impulse  from  eleven  peasants,  fishermen, 
and  publicans.  It  did  not  work  much  at  the  first 
among  literary  people.  Even  Paul,  keen  as  was 
his  intellectual  interest,  and  transcendent  as  is  the 
worth  of  such  interpretation  of  Christianity  as 
chances  to  be  lodged  in  his  letters,  yet  wrote 
genuine  letters  and  not  treatises,  and  was  absorbed 
in  the  practical  exigencies  of  his  missionary  work. 
We  are  so  used  to  reading,  writing,  printing, 
that  it  is  difficult  for  us  to  make  real  to  our- 
selves a  state  of  things  in  which  the  oral  was  the 
usual  way  of  gaining  influence  for  personality  or 
currency  for  ideas.  No  less  than  three  of  the 
schools  of  Hellenic  philosophy  got  their  very  names 
from  places  where,  under  conditions  of  physical 
freedom,  oral  instruction  was  conducted.  The  like 
would  have  been  still  more  true  in  Palestine,  or, 
again,  of  the  stratum  of  Gentile  society  which 
Paul's  mission  mainly  reached.  Then  also,  the  ex- 
pectation of  the  end  of  the  world  in  the  lifetime 
of  men  then  living,  an  expectation  which  Paul 
undoubtedly  shared,  was  not  just  the  thing  to  put 
men  upon  writing  memorials  of  the  past  or  regula- 
tions for  a  future  which  was  not  to  be. 

Now  it  is  precisely  in  accordance  with  these 
facts  that  we  find  that  the  earliest  Christian  writ- 
ings were   purely   occasional   in   their   character. 


AUTHORITIES    OF   THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        1/ 

The  more  formal  ones  began  then  only  to  be 
vv...^tten  when  some  of  the  causes  above  alleged 
had  begun  to  wane.  None  of  the  writings,  judged 
impartially,  sustains  the  supposition  of  a  later  time 
that  they  were  written  with  the  conscious  intent 
of  an  apostolic  regulation  of  the  Christian  institu- 
tion for  all  time.  In  truth,  most  of  them  were 
written  when  as  yet  there  was  nothing  in  existence 
under  the  Christian  name,  which  went  beyond  the 
simplest  and  most  rudimentary  form  of  institution. 
Nothing  is  more  obvious  than  that  Jesus  quotes 
the  Old  Testament  in  the  spirit  of  the  Judaism  of 
the  time.  He  cites  it  most  freely  and  devoutly. 
It  is  to  him  revelation  from  God  and  of  divine 
authority  for  the  Hfe  of  man.  But  Jesus  does  not 
raise  certain  questions,  literary  and  historical,  con- 
cerning the  Old  Testament,  which  we  inevitably 
raise.  He  does  this  no  more  than,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  raises  certain  questions  touching  matters 
of  physical  science  which  are  inevitably  present  to 
our  minds.  His  language,  in  the  one  case,  is  simply 
the  traditional,  as  in  the  other  case  it  is  merely  the 
phenomenal,  language.  His  criticisms  of  the  Old 
Testament  and  his  enormous  advances  upon  it  are 
exclusively  within  the  realm  of  his  own  sublime 
intuition  of  moral  and  spiritual  truth.  His  most 
impressive  self-assertion,  as  over  against  the  Scrip- 
ture of  the  Old  Testament,  has  not  for  its  purpose 
to  discredit  that  Scripture.  Sometimes  he  seeks  to 
free  it  from  misinterpretation.  Again,  he  aims  to 
indicate  the  deeper,  the  more  spiritual,  the  uni- 
c 


1 8        AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

versal  sense,  lying  behind  a  mandate  which,  he 
says,  was  but  partial,  and  given  for  conditions 
which  at  the  time  prevailed.  No  one  could  spea'*. 
of  a  book  with  greater  reverence  than  does  Jesus 
of  the  Old  Testament.  No  one  could  be  more 
anxious  than  is  he,  and  that  not  in  small  and 
timid,  but  in  great  and  vital  way,  that  the  move- 
ment which  he  inaugurated  should  be  regarded  as 
the  fulfilment  of  the  one  which  the  Scriptures  of 
his  race  record. 

Paul,  despite  his  Asiatic  birth,  his  Roman  citizen- 
ship and,  possibly,  some  Hellenic  elements  in  his 
earlier  education,  never  spoke  more  truly  than 
when  he  said  of  himself  that  he  was  a  Hebrew  of 
the  Hebrews.  He  moves,  in  his  interpretation  of 
the  Old  Testament,  almost  exclusively  within  the 
atmosphere  and  employs  the  methods  of  his  rabbin- 
ical training.  Steeped  in  the  Old  Testament  as 
he  himself  is,  he  assumes  relative  familiarity  with 
that  Testament  on  the  part  even  of  the  Gentile 
communities  to  which  he  writes.  For  the  most 
part,  the  earliest  churches  grew  up  upon  the  soil 
of  the  synagogue.  If  that  was  true  so  often  even 
in  the  case  of  Paul's  mission,  we  may  assume  that 
it  was  still  more  true  in  the  case  of  the  labors  of 
the  rest.  Even  the  Gentile  converts  thought 
Christianity  somehow  the  fulfilment  of  Judaism. 
All  these  things  tended  to  hand  on  the  Old  Testa- 
ment intact  into  the  Christian  church,  and  to  cause 
to  be  accorded  to  it  there  a  position  similar  to  that 
which  it  held  in  the  Jewish  synagogue. 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        1 9 

Now,  if  you  will  think  of  it,  this  is  a  very  singu- 
lar fact  and  an  immensely  important  one.  Of  the 
earliest  Christian  churches,  even  of  the  over- 
whelmingly Gentile  ones,  after  the  bitter  struggle 
with  Paul's  Judaizing  opponents,  and  after  the 
destruction  of  Jerusalem,  to  Greeks  and  Romans, 
to  Asiatics  and  Egyptians,  to  Spanish  Christians 
—  if  there  were  any  —  the  literary  basis  and  the 
sole  written  authority  was  the  Old  Testament. 
There  was  nothing  written  beside  it. 

This  throws  some  Hght  upon  the  controversy 
which  has  been  waged,  as  to  whether  Christian- 
ity was,  or  was  not,  from  the  beginning  a  book- 
religion.  Certainly  the  Christian  religion  had, 
from  the  beginning,  a  book  which  was  to  it  sacred 
Scripture,  inspired  oracle,  revelation  of  God. 
But,  strangely  enough,  that  book  was  the  Old 
Testament.  It  was  the  book  of  another  religion, 
Judaism.  It  was  a  Christian  book  only  under  an 
interpretation  which  no  Jew  would  have  allowed. 
But,  of  course,  the  proper  sense  of  that  question 
is  not  met  by  the  answer  given  above.  Did 
the  Christian  movement  have  from  the  beginning 
a  certain  sacred  and  authoritative  literature  of  its 
own,  to  which  it  referred  ?  That  is  the  sense  of 
the  question.  To  that  question  we  must  answer, 
that  Christianity  certainly  had  not  from  the  begin- 
ning such  a  book.  It  had  in  its  earliest  period  no 
such  relation  to  any  book  as  Mohammedanism  bore 
from  the  beginning  to  the  Koran.  It  had  not  from 
the  beginning  a  specific  written  authority  indigenous 


20       AUTHORITIES    OF   THE   EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

to  Christianity  and  in  turn  formative  of  the  earliest 
Christianity.     All  that  came  later. 

On  the  contrary,  its  specific  and  characteristic 
inspiration  was  from  the  beginning  that  of  a  per- 
sonality and  a  life.  Its  authority  was  Christ  him- 
self. Its  substance  was  a  life,  the  life  in  imitation 
of  Christ.  For  the  believer,  the  essence  of  Chris- 
tianity consisted,  not  in  the  acknowledgment  of  a 
book,  not  in  adherence  to  an  organization,  not  in 
the  confession  of  a  creed,  but  in  the  imitation  of  a 
life.  Documents  acquired  authority  only  because 
they  enshrined  a  personality.  Organization  gained 
importance  only  because  it  brought  men  in  contact 
with  others  who  were  trying  to  live  out  the  spirit- 
ual life.  Doctrine  was  of  consequence  only  be- 
cause it  expressed  the  basal  principles  of  that  life. 
Christianity  found  its  first  expression,  not  in  litera- 
ture, but  in  men's  lives  as  they  tried  to  follow  the 
Master  of  that  life.  It  acquired  a  literature,  an 
organization,  a  dogma,  only  as  incidental  to  the 
development  and  necessary  to  the  perpetuation  of 
the  spirit  of  that  life. 

For,  of  course,  it  is  implicit  in  all  that  we  have 
said,  that  the  earliest  Christians  did  have  some- 
thing which  they  placed  side  by  side  with  the 
divine  Scriptures  of  the  ancient  Covenant.  They 
did  have  something  of  their  own  to  which  they 
attributed  an  authority  equal  to  and  even  greater 
than  the  authority  which  they  conceded  to  the 
Old  Testament.  That  authority  was  the  Lord 
himself,  who  had  declared.  Ye  have  heard  that  it 


AUTHORITIES    OF   THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        21 

hath  been  said  by  them  of  old  time,  .  .  .  but  I  say 
unto  you.  It  was  the  Spirit  which  had  spoken  at 
sundry  times  and  in  divers  portions  through  the 
Prophets,  which  had  spoken  in  these  last  days  in  a 
Son.  It  was  the  Christ  himself  while  he  lived.  It 
was  the  oral  tradition  of  him  when  he  was  gone. 
It  was  the  written  Gospel  only  when  the  men  who 
had  companied  with  him  in  his  Hfe  were  going. 
It  was  the  Master  himself  and  his  mandate  which 
occupied  this  great  place.  It  was  the  reminiscence 
of  the  living  Christ  when  he  had  ceased  to  walk 
visibly  among  men.  It  was  certain  documents  be- 
cause they  alone  came  to  be  held  authentically  to 
enshrine  that  reminiscence. 

The  constant  appeal  in  the  early  Christian  lit- 
erature is  to  the  tradition  of  what  Jesus  had  said. 
"  The  Master  said,"  "the  Lord  Jesus  saith,"  —  these 
are  the  ever  recurring  formulas.  Nothing  which 
we  can  think  of  in  our  modern  life  gives  us  an  ade- 
quate sense  of  the  authority  for  the  Jew  of  Jesus* 
time  of  that  which  Moses  and  the  Prophets  had 
said.  The  measure  therefore  of  the  impression 
which  Jesus  had  made  may  be  found  in  this,  that, 
contradicting,  as  he  did,  some  things  which  Moses 
and  the  Prophets  had  said,  amplifying  and  supple- 
menting many  more,  it  is  yet  his  word,  the  word 
of  Christ  and,  with  it,  the  Old  Testament,  which 
is  the  authority  to  which  Christians  refer.  Jesus' 
own  manner  of  putting  his  authority  over  against 
that  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  the  earliest  Chris- 
tian impression  of  his  dignity,  had  involved  such 


22        AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

concession  of  the  weight  of  his  teaching  from  the 
first.  Beyond  all  dispute  to  Paul  is  that  of  which 
he  is  able  to  say  that  he  received  it  from  the  Lord. 
He  puts  away  a  doubt  concerning  the  resurrection 
with  a  word  of  the  Lord.  And,  in  regard  to  an 
opinion  of  which  he  knows  that  it  is  his  own,  he 
yet  believes  that,  in  it,  he  has  the  spirit  of  the 
Lord. 

It  is  not  impossible  that  already  in  Paul's  time 
a  beginning  had  been  made  of  the  writing  down 
of  sayings  of  Jesus.  But  there  is  not  the  least 
evidence  that  Paul  had  before  him  any  such  writ- 
ing containing  words  of  Jesus.  Much  less  is  there 
proof  that  the  words  had  weight  with  him  because 
they  stood  in  a  given  writing.  It  was  enough  that 
he  considered  them  genuine  words  of  the  Lord, 
however  he  had  come  by  them  —  whether  out  of  the 
body  of  the  tradition  current  in  the  Christian  com- 
munities, or  through  his  own  inward  and  spiritual 
revelations  of  the  mind  of  the  Master,  which  he 
deemed  no  whit  less  authentic  than  the  testimony 
of  the  disciples  themselves.  One  beautiful  saying 
of  Jesus,  which  has  not  come  down  to  us  in  any 
Gospel,  appears  in  the  address  of  Paul  to  the 
Ephesian  elders  :  "  Remember  the  words  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  how  he  said,  It  is  more  blessed  to 
give  than  to  receive."  ^  That  single  instance,  and 
the  manner  of  its  occurrence,  suggest  that  the 
oral  tradition,  the  substance  of  preaching  and  of 
pious   reminiscence,  held   more   in    solution  than 

1  Acts  XX.  35. 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        23 

has  anywhere  been  deposited  for  us.  Everywhere, 
in  the  Epistles,  in  the  Book  of  the  Acts,  in  the 
Apocalypse,  we  find  this  same  apprehension.  It 
is  to  the  Old  Testament  and  the  word  of  Jesus, 
that  the  Christian  looks  for  his  authority. 

Meantime,  it  accords  with  all  that  we  have  said 
that  in  the  Christian  literature  until  the  time  of 
Justin's  First  Apology,  about  the  year  152,  the 
citations  of  the  Lord's  sayings  are  very  varied  in 
their  wording.  At  times  we  could  almost  think 
that  something  written,  a  Gospel,  or  at  least  some 
source  of  our  Gospels,  had  been  in  the  hands  of 
the  authors.  At  other  times,  it  is  as  if  the  writers 
quoted  freely  from  memory.  And  again  it  seems 
as  if  one  of  them  had  cited  in  forms  which  were 
current  in  his  own  time  or  locality  sayings  of 
Jesus  which  have  been  handed  down  to  us  in  some 
other  form.  It  has  been  remarked  that  this  loose- 
ness of  citation  of  the  words  of  the  Lord  is  in 
striking  contrast  with  the  growing  verbal  accuracy 
that  characterizes  the  quotations  from  the  Old 
Testament  which  are  made  by  these  same  authors 
of  whom  we  speak.  And  always,  thus  far,  we 
have  to  think  of  any  Christian  writings  as  cited 
because  they  contain  the  words  of  the  Lord,  and 
not  of  the  words  as  cited  because  they  stood  in 
certain  acknowledged  writings.  That  is  a  vast 
and  characteristic  difference. 

It  is  reasonably  certain  that  early  in  this  period 
of  which  we  speak,  not  only  the  predecessors  to 
whom  Luke  alludes,  but  probably  many  others  also, 


24       AUTHORITIES    OF   THE   EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

had  wrought  for  the  Uterary  preservation  of  the 
tradition  of  what  Jesus  had  said  and  done.  Pre- 
cisely what  shape  these  memorials  of  Jesus  took, 
and  exactly  what  is  the  relation  of  our  canonical 
Gospels  to  one  or  more  of  them  —  these  are  ques- 
tions about  which  there  has  been  almost  infinite 
debate.  It  is  possible  that  this  relation  can  never 
with  absolute  certainty  be  fixed.  Some  of  these 
primitive  and  fragmentary  memorials  of  Jesus 
were  no  doubt  early  lost  altogether.  Portions  of 
one  or  more  of  them  are  probably  preserved  to  us 
embedded  in  our  synoptic  Gospels,  or  at  least  may 
lie  at  the  basis  of  that  common  element  in  the 
synoptic  Gospels  which  gives  to  them  that  name. 
Fragments  have  also  come  down  to  us,  either  in 
citation  or  independently,  of  writings  which  per- 
haps represent  this  earlier  stage  of  the  making  of 
the  Gospels,  and  which  were  not  at  once  supplanted 
in  public  use  by  the  Gospels  that  subsequently  be- 
came canonical.  By  the  middle  of  the  second 
century  there  can  hardly  have  been  any  Christian 
communities  of  consequence  which  did  not  possess 
some  revered  document  of  this  sort.  And  such 
written  memorials  of  the  fulfilment  of  the  Law  and 
Prophets  in  Christ  would  come  naturally  to  be 
read  in  the  Christian  assemblages  for  worship, 
along  with  the  divine  Book  of  the  Law  and  the 
Prophets  whose  words  were  thus  fulfilled.  Thus 
publicly  read  they  would  become  the  means  of 
edification  and  the  basis  of  instruction,  since  the 
Christian  teachers  were  no   longer  in  the   happy 


AUTHORITIES    OF   THE   EARLY    CHRISTIANS        2$ 

position  of  the  men  of  the  elder  time  who  could 
tell  out  of  their  own  experience  of  the  wonders  of 
that  fulfilment. 

The  manner  of  the  one  definite  allusion  which  is 
made  by  Clement  of  Rome  to  the  First  Letter  of 
Paul  to  the  Corinthians  is  most  interesting.  Clem- 
ent writes  in  the  name  of  the  Roman  Christians 
to  the  Corinthian  church  on  occasion  of  miserable 
strife  in  the  latter  church  not  unlike  that  painful 
situation  to  which  Paul  addressed  himself.  "  Take 
again  in  hand  that  letter  of  the  blessed  Apostle 
Paul,"  he  says.i  The  implication  is  just  what  we 
might  naturally  have  supposed.  The  letters  of 
the  Apostle  were  not  at  first  read  in  the  Christian 
communities  to  which  they  were  addressed  in  any 
other  manner  than  that  naturally  fitted  to  accom- 
plish the  purpose  for  which  they  were  written.  But 
this  also  is  suggested  in  the  passage  from  Clem- 
ent, that  these  letters  came  later  to  be  taken  up 
again,  to  be  read  often,  or  even  regularly,  for  the 
guidance  and  spiritual  profit  which  they  were  felt 
to  contain. 

One  thing  is  entirely  certain.  The  devout  read- 
ing in  the  Christian  assemblages,  along  with  the 
Old  Testament,  of  writings  deemed  to  have  been 
derived  from  the  Apostles,  of  Gospels,  that  is,  in 
the  first  instance,  and  then  of  letters,  was  the  first 
outward  step  toward  the  canonization  of  these 
writings.  When  one  reflects  how  rare  was,  prob- 
ably, the  private  possession  of  books  among  mem- 

1 1  Clement,  47. 


26       AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

bers  of  the  Early  Christian  Communities,  one  can 
judge  how  much  the  solemn  public  reading  would 
mean.  The  reading  of  the  memorials  of  Jesus,  side 
by  side  with  the  Old  Testament  books,  tended  ever 
to  bring  these  memorials,  as  books,  to  the  level  of  the 
Old  Testament.  But  the  Old  Testament  books  had 
been  oracles  of  God  to  the  Christians  from  the  first. 
It  is  certain  that  the  formal  canonization  of  the 
New  Testament  writings,  when  it  did  finally  take 
place,  was  not  felt,  in  the  large,  by  the  Christian 
worshippers  to  command  anything  new  and  strange. 
It  did  but  commend  and  confirm  something  which 
was  already  old  and  famiHar  in  the  attitude  and 
practice  of  believers  concerning  the  great  mass  of 
these  writings.  That  literature  which,  in  the  end, 
was  solemnly  declared  to  be  holy  and  authoritative 
for  the  Christian  institution,  was,  with  but  insignifi- 
cant exceptions,  the  same  body  of  literature  which 
had  long  and  widely  commended  itself  as  holy  and 
authoritative  for  the  Christian  life.  Ecclesiastical 
declarations,  when  they  came,  destroyed  little  and 
created  nothing,  in  this  particular.  Those  decla- 
rations did  not  give  character  or  position  to  the 
books.  They  simply  recorded  the  position  which 
the  devout  mind  of  the  Christian  communities  had 
long  since  given  to  them.  They  merely  asserted 
the  character  which  the  Christians  had  widely,  and 
with  growing  clearness,  felt  that  the  books  pos- 
sessed. But,  of  course,  such  declarations  are  yet 
far  in  advance  of  the  point  in  our  history  which 
we  have  reached. 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        2J 

Although  letters  were,  in  any  case,  the  first 
apostolic  writings  in  the  hands  of  the  Christian 
community,  yet  we  have  already  seen  the  Gospels 
considerably  in  advance  of  the  Epistles  in  the 
approach  to  that  authority  which  was  conceded  to 
the  Old  Testament.  This  was  surely  because  the 
Gospels  were  most  nearly  made  up  of  the  record 
of  words  and  acts  of  Jesus.  The  intentness  of 
the  earliest  Christians  simply  upon  life  permitted 
this.  The  words  and  the  example  of  Jesus  min- 
istered most  directly  to  the  Christian  life.  But  in 
the  bitter  conflicts  of  the  second  century  and  in 
the  confusion  in  the  churches,  men  turned  back 
lovingly  to  the  words  of  Paul.  It  was  to  Paul's 
labor  and  love  that  the  institution,  as  institution, 
largely  owed  its  origin.  It  is  the  apostoHc  words 
which  have  mainly  to  do  with  the  church  as  in- 
stitution. And  so  in  the  growing  power  and 
peril  of  the  institution,  the  apostoHc  words 
began  to  come  to  the  front,  or  at  least  to  overtake 
the  Gospels  in  the  march  toward  canonization. 

The  great  heretical  movements  of  the  second 
century  drove  the  church  to  consolidation  of  its 
sentiment  as  to  what  were  to  be  considered 
accredited  Gospels.  And,  equally,  through  the 
license  with  which  men  Hke  Marcion  undertook 
to  form  religious  societies  of  their  own,  they  drove 
the  church  to  consolidation  of  its  sentiment  as  to 
what  was  apostolic  mandate  and  usage.  There 
must  be  some  barrier  against  the  excesses  and 
vagaries  of  which  Christians  themselves,  like  the 


28        AUTHORITIES    OF    THE   EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

Montanists,  made  themselves  guilty.  All  of  these 
things  had  their  influence.  Too  much,  however, 
has  been  made  of  the  forces  of  antagonism  and  of 
their  bearing  upon  the  formation  of  the  Canon. 
With  the  waning  of  the  original  productive  im- 
pulse and  enthusiasm,  came,  all  of  itself,  the  dispo- 
sition to  idealize  the  Christian  past  and  to  look  for 
authority  to  that  past.  Quite  apart  from  Gnostics 
and  Montanists  a  New  Testament  would  certainly 
have  come  to  be. 

The  Pauline  churches  were  almost  always  the 
great  history-making  churches,  so  well  had  the 
great  missionary  chosen  the  strategic  places. 
After  the  storm  of  contumely  which  arose  about 
Paul  had  died  down,  when  the  bigotry  and  bitter- 
ness of  his  opponents  had  been  forgotten,  when 
men  had  got  far  enough  away  from  him  to  realize 
how  great  he  was,  there  came,  even  in  Jewish 
circles,  a  sort  of  rehabilitation  of  the  memory  of 
the  Apostle  to  the  Gentiles.  But,  indeed,  the 
lapse  of  time  was  bringing  tribute  to  all  of  the 
Apostles.  Were  they  not  the  sole  witnesses  to 
that  which  the  Lord  had  said  and  done  .■*  And 
were  not  their  writings  the  only  part  of  their 
witness  of  which  men  could  be  sure.?  So  that 
phrases  like  these,  **  Christ  and  the  Apostles 
thus  spake,"  or,  "  Christ,  through  the  Apostles, 
has  thus  ordained," — became  almost  formulae  for 
that  of  which  the  church  felt  confident.  Differ- 
ences among  the  Apostles  are  forgotten.  The 
Apostles  are  one  body.     They  constitute  the  one 


AUTHORITIES    OF   THE   EARLY   CHRISTIANS       29 

body  to  which  Christ  committed  all  the  interests  of 
his  cause.  Both  Irenaeus  and  TertuUian  speak 
thus  in  terms  which  Justin,  only  twenty  or  thirty 
years  before,  would  hardly  have  understood,  con- 
cerning a  weight  of  the  Apostles,  and  an  authority 
of  the  apostolic  writings,  because  apostolic,  which 
authority  was  to  be  decisive  in  all  cases.  These 
are  now  the  signs  of  a  new  thing  coming. 

It  was  but  a  step  for  these  men  and  for  their 
successors  to  try  to  prove  to  be  apostolic,  writ- 
ings which  the  church  had  long  used  to  edifica- 
tion; or  again  to  remove  from  a  usage  well-nigh 
immemorial  some  writings  which,  though  dearly 
loved,  could  not  be  found  to  be  apostolic.  The 
men  still  stood  face  to  face  with  the  question, 
not  yet  altogether  closed :  What  writings  are  to 
be  read  in  the  Christian  assemblages  for  worship  ? 
One  sees  how  the  standard  of  decision  of  that 
question  was  changing  from  one  of  inward  and 
spiritual  quality  to  one  of  outward  fact,  or  at  least 
of  supposed  fact.  The  earher  time  had  answered  : 
Those  books  are  to  be  read  which  contain  the 
spirit  of  Christ.  Of  their  containing  that  spirit 
the  Christian  man  was  the  judge.  His  being  edi- 
fied was  the  criterion.  But,  as  time  went  on,  the 
very  problem  was  to  train  up  new  generations  in 
the  spirit  of  Christ.  The  writings  read  in  the 
public  services  must  be  the  great  instrument  in 
that  training.  It  seemed  to  men  that  if  only  the 
apostoHc  origin  of  the  writings  could  be  made 
out,    then  the   Christian  spirit  of  them  would  be 


30       AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

assured.  But  of  questions  of  authorship  only  the 
leaders  of  the  church,  and  they  upon  external  and 
historical  grounds,  could  be  the  judges.  And  if 
once  the  circle  of  writings  of  apostolic  authorship 
could  be  made  out,  then  no  others  should  be  pub- 
licly read.  We  see  the  reasoning  and  appreciate 
its  naturalness.  The  movement  appears  inevitable. 
But  it  was  one  of  far-reaching  consequence. 

One  stands  still  in  the  face  of  a  momentous 
issue  like  this  which  we  see  here  preparing,  and 
asks  himself  whether  it  was,  for  the  cause  of  spirit- 
ual religion,  an  advance,  or  whether  it  was  not  a 
retrogression,  that  the  church  did  thus  create  a 
New  Testament,  and  transfer  to  it  an  authority 
which  before  had  been  ascribed  solely  to  the 
spirit  which  was  in  Jesus  Christ.  But  can  any  one 
dream  that  the  tradition  concerning  Jesus  could 
have  propagated  itself  indefinitely  in  any  other  way 
than  this,  without  being  indefinitely  corrupted  }  It 
was  not  possible  but  that  the  men  of  later  genera- 
tions should  jealously  guard  even  the  letter  of 
these  memorials  of  an  earlier  and  more  privileged 
time,  as  the  charter  and  constitution  of  the  faith 
which  they  possessed.  It  was  not  possible  but 
that,  in  the  end,  men  should  thus  betake  them- 
selves to  an  outward  criterion  in  the  judgment  of 
this  literature.  For  the  inward  spirit  which  could 
judge  of  it  was  the  very  thing  which,  by  this  liter- 
ature, men  were  seeking  to  create. 

It  does  not  follow  that  their  judgments  of  his- 
tory were,  in  all  details,  correct.      But  assuredly 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        3 1 

we  have  to  think  of  the  making  of  the  Canon  as 
also  under  the  same  divine  guidance  and  inspiration 
which  obtained  in  the  making  of  the  single  books 
and  in  the  inauguration  of  the  Christian  movement 
itself.  That  touch  of  the  divine  Spirit  upon  the 
human  which  we  mean  by  inspiration  is  here 
seen,  in  the  slow  miracle  of  history,  making  a  col- 
lection of  books,  and  not  simply  putting  it  into  the 
heart  of  a  man  to  write  a  single  book  in  which  the 
truth  of  God  should  shine.  We  have  to  think  of  that 
impulse  which  goes  forth  from  the  spirit  of  good- 
ness in  Jesus  Christ,  as  not  confined  to  the  revela- 
tion in  the  books,  but  as  extending  to  the  whole 
life  of  the  church  and  of  mankind,  and  as  answer- 
ing, then  and  now,  out  of  the  hearts  of  men,  to  the 
revelation  which  is  here  contained. 

In  the  very  moment  of  gravest  import  and  of 
greatest  opportunity  for  all  the  future  of  Chris- 
tendom, that  decisive  work  was  done.  The  recog- 
nition of  the  unity  and  sacredness  of  this  little 
body  of  literature  as  against  all  other  literature. 
Christian  or  pagan,  was  obtained.  In  the  first  zeal 
of  it,  that  recognition  was  obtained  at  the  cost  of 
the  loss  of  some  other  early  Christian  literature 
which,  as  students  of  history,  we  can  never  suffi- 
ciently deplore.  But  we  should  need  to  know 
more  than  we  do  know  in  order  to  be  sure  that 
the  loss  could  then,  in  the  making  of  the  history, 
have  been  avoided,  and  yet  the  results  secured 
which  have  followed  to  the  world  from  the  influence 
of  the  New  Testament. 


32       AUTHORITIES    OF   THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

We  shall  do  well  to  spend  the  remainder  of  this 
first  lecture  in  the  effort  to  construct  a  sort  of 
framework  for  our  study.  Indeed,  there  are  two 
bits  of  outline  which  we  need  to  have  brought  to 
our  attention.  The  first  of  these  is  chronological 
in  its  nature. 

The  movement  which  we  are  to  study  may  be 
roughly  apprehended  as  having  passed  through 
three  stages.  Its  history  falls,  therefore,  easily 
into  three  periods.  There  is,  in  the  first  place,  the 
period,  roundly  two  generations  of  the  second 
century,  in  which  there  was  not  present  even  so 
much  as  the  idea  of  a  New  Testament  Canon  that 
was  to  be  placed  side  by  side  with  the  Scriptures 
of  the  Old  Testament.  In  this  period  the  apostolic 
origin  of  a  book  was  not  thought  of  as  conferring 
upon  it,  at  once,  a  quality  which  was  identical  with 
the  prophetical  character  of  the  Old  Testament. 
In  this  period  the  words  of  the  Lord  have  indeed 
their  own  supreme  weight,  from  the  beginning. 
But  the  written  Gospels  have  their  weight  because 
they  contain  those  words.  The  Epistles  have 
indeed  the  affectionate  and  reverent  acceptance 
granted  to  the  personality  of  the  Apostles,  but  no 
other.  And,  as  it  happens,  the  one  prophetical 
book  of  the  New  Testament  is  not  mentioned  until 
almost  the  end  of  the  time  of  which  we  speak. 

There  is,  then,  in  the  second  place,  the  period, 
roughly  speaking,  the  third  and  last  generation 
of  the  second  century,  in  which  suddenly,  under 
pressure  from  without  and  from  within,  and  keep- 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE   EARLY    CHRISTIANS       33 

ing  pace  with  the  rise  of  the  idea  of  the  catholic 
church,  the  thought  takes  supreme  possession  of 
the  minds  of  men,  that  there  is  a  body  of  apostoUc 
literature,  sacred  and  authoritative,  which  is  to  be 
placed  side  by  side  with  the  Old  Testament.  To 
this  literature  is  attributed  an  inspiration  which 
is  apprehended  in  the  same  way  with  that  of  the 
Old  Testament.  This  apostoHc  literature  is  indeed 
the  specific  Scripture  of  Christendom. 

And  then  comes  the  third  period,  covering  more 
than  two  centuries,  in  which  the  conception  is 
indeed  fixed,  but  in  which  the  limits  of  its  applica- 
tion vary.  The  fact  is  now  universally  assumed 
that  Christianity,  also,  has  its  own  volume  of  in- 
spired writings.  But  what  writings  are  to  make 
up  that  volume }  The  interest  centres  mainly 
about  a  few  books  like  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
the  Apocalypse,  and  some  of  the  catholic  Epistles, 
which  notoriously  had  whole  generations  of  con- 
flict to  obtain  their  recognition  in  both  East  and 
West  as  scriptural  books.  This  is  the  period  in 
which  we  begin  to  meet  with  lists  in  the  writ- 
ings of  the  Fathers,  in  which  hsts  they  express 
their  own  opinions  and  canvass  the  opinions  of 
others.  It  is,  finally,  the  period  in  which  our 
matter  becomes  the  subject  of  decrees  of  coun- 
cils, in  which  decrees  it  is  intended  that  the 
orthodox  opinion  shall  be  settled  beyond  all  pos- 
sibility of  dispute. 

The  other  rough  outline  which  at  this  stage  of 
our  study  we  should  offer,  is  an  attempt  at  some 

D 


34       AUTHORITIES    OF   THE   EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

sort  of  classification  of  the  literature,  outside  of 
the  canonical,  with  which,  in  this  decisive  time,  we 
have  to  deal.  The  last  thirty  years  of  the  second 
century  are,  by  all,  conceded  to  have  been  years 
of  the  very  greatest  significance  for  the  history 
of  the  Christian  rehgion.  Perhaps  never  in  the 
whole  history  of  the  faith  has  so  much  that  was 
of  moment  been  crowded  into  one  generation. 
Not  only  are  these  the  years  in  which,  if  our  con- 
struction of  the  history  is  correct,  men  first  appre- 
hended, in  all  the  clearness  of  it,  the  idea  of  a 
New  Testament  Canon,  and  began  to  make  ear- 
nest with  the  authority  of  that  Canon.  But  in 
those  same  years  men  seem  first  to  have  conceived 
of  that  form  of  organization  and  church  govern- 
ment which  had  been  growing  up  among  them,  as 
something  given  in  the  intent  of  Christ  and  the 
Apostles ;  as  uniform  and  authoritative  from  the 
beginning  and  over  all  the  earth.  And  in  these 
same  years  men  came  first  to  apprehend  those 
forms  of  doctrinal  statement  which  had  been 
gradually  taking  shape  among  them,  as  if  these 
were  held  in  uniformity  by  all  the  apostolic 
churches,  and  as  if  they  had  remained  unchanged 
since  the  Apostles'  time,  an  original  sacred  deposit 
of  dogma,  a  faith,  even  the  formal  utterance  of 
it,  once  delivered  to  the  saints.  In  other  words, 
now  suddenly,  in  these  significant  years,  we  seem 
to  have  arrived  at  a  New  Testament  Canon ;  at  an 
outward  institution  which  could  with  propriety 
be    called   a   universal   church ;    and,    under   this 


AUTHORITIES    OF    THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        35 

church  and  Scripture,  at  an  admitted  rule  of  faith, 
binding  upon  all  Christians,  which  issues  in  what 
we  know  as  the  Apostles'  Creed.  That  these  three 
things  have  the  closest  possible  relation  the  one 
to  the  other  will  immediately  be  surmised.  As  a 
matter  of  fact,  they  are  all  but  expressions  of  the 
same  tendency,  manifestations  of  the  same  force, 
and  phases  of  the  same  movement.  In  the  sixth 
and  seventh  lectures  we  plan  to  study  them  in 
their  mutual  relation. 

But  it  will  easily  be  seen  that  these  three  things, 
the  Canon  as  the  only  authoritative  source  of  in- 
formation concerning  Jesus,  the  triumph  of  the 
episcopal  organization,  and  the  finding  of  the  bond 
of  union  among  Christians  in  a  creed — these  three 
things  definitely  close  the  period  of  the  Christian 
origins.  They  mark,  or  shall  we  not  rather  say, 
they  constitute,  the  rise  of  the  catholic  church. 
They  end  an  era  which  had  continued,  with  char- 
acteristics more  or  less  unchanged,  since  Jesus' 
time.  They  begin  a  new  era  with  traits  and  issues 
of  its  own,  which,  in  some  sense,  may  be  said  to 
continue  to  our  day. 

With  this  epoch  begins  the  literature  which  is, 
properly  speaking,  ecclesiastical.  Of  this  litera- 
ture the  church  Fathers,  rightly  so  called,  are  the 
authors  —  Irenaeus,  Tertullian,  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria, Origen,  Cyprian,  and  the  rest.  On  the 
soil  of  the  Roman  state  and  in  the  spirit  of  Greek 
education,  there  springs  up  a  new  world-Hterature, 
with  its  controlling  impulse  in  the  religion  of  the 


36       AUTHORITIES    OF   THE   EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

despised  Galilean.  That  religion  from  this  epoch 
begins  its  march  toward  the  possession  of  a  uni- 
versal empire.  Its  outward  victory  is  still  nearly 
a  century  and  a  half  in  advance  of  it.  But  without 
its  Canon,  its  bishop,  and  its  creed  it  could  hardly 
have  won  that  victory. 

But,  before  these  men,  who  were  churchmen 
writing  in  the  consciousness  of  belonging  to  a  great 
institution,  there  was  a  little  group  of  scholars, 
covering  about  a  generation  in  their  activity,  who 
differed  from  those  others  as  widely  as  can  well  be 
thought.  They  were  men  like  Justin  Martyr, 
Aristides,  Athenagoras,  Tatian,  and  the  rest. 
They  were  the  Apologists.  They,  too,  were  edu- 
cated men,  among  the  first  whom  in  any  number 
the  Christian  movement  gathered  to  itself.  They 
had  been  pagan  philosophers  and  teachers,  many 
of  them.  Most  of  them  were  converted  in  maturity. 
Their  aim  was  to  justify  themselves  in  the  eyes 
of  the  men  of  their  own  class.  It  was  their  work 
to  say  the  true  word  on  behalf  of  Christianity  in 
the  ears  of  rulers,  and  to  defend  the  new  religion 
before  cultivated  pagans.  Their  literary  models 
were  among  the  philosophers.  Their  spirit  was 
often  that  of  the  rhetoricians.  Their  impulse  was 
sometimes  that  of  an  intellectual  freedom  which 
would  have  startled  the  churchmen  of  a  later  time. 

And  then,  if  we  go  still  farther  back,  we  come 
to  the  time,  from  that  of  the  authors  of  Second 
Clement  and  of  the  Didache  back  to  the  Apostles 
themselves,   when   the   poor   and   simple   people, 


AUTHORITIES    OF   THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS        3/ 

slaves,  and  the  down-trodden,  constituted  the  great 
mass  of  the  Christian  converts.  It  was  the  time 
when  the  sense  that  the  Christ  of  God,  the  Deliv- 
erer from  sin  and  death,  had  come  was  nearly  all 
of  Christian  faith ;  and  being  good  and  showing 
love  was  nearly  all  of  Christian  life.  The  type  of 
the  whole  thing  was  dominantly  Judaic.  It  was, 
at  the  first  at  least,  that  of  the  synagogues  and 
of  the  Httle  bodies  of  proselytes  which  gathered 
about  them.  It  had  but  little  to  do  with  the  great 
outside  world.  There  is  nothing  in  the  whole  Ht- 
erature  of  the  period  which  for  a  moment  reaches 
up  to  the  intellectual  level  of  certain  parts  of  the 
New  Testament  itself.  But  the  models  of  the 
literature  are  precisely  those  which  we  know  in 
the  New  Testament.  There  are  letters,  some  of 
them  not  altogether  unworthy  to  be  called  apostolic 
in  their  spirit,  like  that  of  Clement,  and  Hke  those 
of  Ignatius  and  Polycarp.  There  is  an  apocalypse, 
the  Shepherd  of  Hermas.  There  are  gospels,  num- 
bers of  them,  of  which  fragments  have  come  down 
to  us,  Hke  that  according  to  the  Hebrews  and  that 
according  to  the  Egyptians.  And  there  is  one 
book  of  composite  type,  a  simple  manual  of  in- 
struction, called  The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve 
Apostles,  the  Didache. 

It  is  evident  that  the  external  conditions  which 
gave  shape  to  the  literature  which  we  know  as  the 
canonical  produced  also  many  other  works  of  the 
same  general  sort,  in  the  midst  of  which  the  works 
later  canonized  long  stood.     Indeed,  not  a  few  of 


38       AUTHORITIES    OF   THE    EARLY    CHRISTIANS 

these  other  works  were  read  in  the  services  for 
public  worship  in  the  Christian  community,  on  the 
Lord's  day,  along  with,  or  even  in  place  of,  some 
books  which  afterward  went  to  make  up  the  New 
Testament.  Beyond  question  our  Gospels  were 
members  of  a  class  and  examples  of  a  numerous 
type.  The  preface  to  Luke  bears  that  upon  its 
face.  Quite  naturally  did  other  apostoUc  spirits 
write  letters  for  warning  and  entreaty  not  unlike 
in  form  to  those  which  Paul  had  written.  Men  did 
not,  at  first,  feel  the  difference.  And  no  one  strove 
as  yet  to  enforce  a  distinction  of  the  literature 
deemed  to  be  apostolic  from  all  other  literature  in 
the  manner  which  has  remained  familiar  down  to 
our  own  day.  But  from  this  point  we  must  take 
our  departure  for  the  study  of  the  next  lecture. 


LECTURE   II 

THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  EARLIEST 
CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE  TO  THE 
NEW    TESTAMENT 


LECTURE   II 

THE  WITNESS  OF  THE  EARLIEST 
CHRISTIAN  LITERATURE  TO  THE 
NEW    TESTAMENT 

A  WELL-KNOWN  historian  of  Christian  literature 
has  put  forth  the  thesis  that  if  that  history  would 
be  true  to  its  task,  it  should  ignore  the  distinction 
between  the  books  which  ultimately  found  place  in 
the  Canon  and  the  rest  of  the  early  Christian  lit- 
erary work.i  He  argues  that  this  distinction  was, 
as  we  have  seen,  in  all  the  sharpness  of  it,  a  dis- 
covery of  the  last  generation  of  the  second  century. 
The  separation  of  these  writings  from  all  others 
was  one  which  the  earlier  generations  had  not  felt. 
The  sense  of  their  elevation  to  a  plane  unique  the 
earlier  Christians  had  not  shared.  Those  genera- 
tions had  used  other  documents  in  the  church  ser- 
vices for  worship,  to  some  extent,  just  as  they 
used  these.  The  sharp  limitation  of  the  New 
Testament  Canon  and  the  attribution  to  it  of  the 
quality  of  Scripture  was  really  the  first  dogma  of 
the  catholic  church. 

But  while  all  this  is  true,  we  must  reply  that 
the   distinction   upon  which   that   separation  was 

1  Gustav  Kriiger,  Das  Dogma  vom  Neuen  Testament,  Giessen, 
1896. 

41 


42        WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

based  had  existed  from  the  beginning,  although 
not  at  first  observed.  There  was  an  inspiration  of 
the  main  body  of  these  writings,  the  outward  con- 
dition of  which,  at  any  rate,  was  the  nearness  of 
their  writers  to  Christ,  and  the  consequence  of 
which  was  the  unique  relation  of  the  more  impor- 
tant of  these  writings  to  the  formation  of  the  Chris- 
tian church.  There  was  a  Heaven  which  lay  about 
the  infancy  of  Christianity,  which  only  slowly  faded 
out  into  the  common  Hght  of  day.  That  Heaven 
was  the  spirit  of  the  Master  himself.  The  main 
ones,  at  all  events,  among  these  writings,  do  cen- 
trally enshrine  the  first  pure  illumination  of  that 
spirit.  We  are  not  interested  in  asserting  that 
all  of  the  books  in  the  subsequent  Canon  con- 
tain that  spirit  in  an  equal  degree.  We  are  not 
concerned  to  say  that  some  books  which  ultimately 
found  themselves  outside  of  the  Canon  contain  it 
in  no  degree  whatever.  We  know  how  long  the 
outline  of  the  Canon  was  a  wavering  one.  We 
cannot  hold  that  the  outline  of  the  Canon,  when 
at  last  it  was  fixed,  achieved  exactly  that  which  the 
men  who  fixed  it  had  in  mind.  And  yet  even  so, 
the  New  Testament  is  a  fact.  It  is  an  historic 
magnitude,  definite,  and  of  incalculable  influence. 
The  canonization,  we  concede,  was  a  purely  his- 
toric process.  The  contrary  issue  of  many  steps 
of  that  process  is  thinkable.  But,  even  if  we 
should  say  that  the  Christians,  at  the  end  of  the 
second  century,  might  have  failed  altogether  thus 
to  separate  this  literature  from  the  rest,  yet  it  is  a 


WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        43 

mere  matter  of  fact  that  they  did  thus  separate. 
And  by  that  fact  these  documents  became  for 
Christians  the  regulative  ones,  and  the  others  did 
not.  It  is  a  simple  matter  of  history  that  to  these 
documents  the  Christian  church  for  more  than 
seventeen  hundred  years  has  thus  referred,  and  to 
the  others  it  has  not.  From  these  it  has  drawn  its 
life,  by  these  it  has  guided  its  course,  and  by  the 
others  it  has  not.  If  one  would  understand  Chris- 
tianity, he  is  compelled  to  reckon  with  the  New 
Testament  as  it  is.  And  furthermore,  he  is  com- 
pelled to  recognize  the  validity  of  the  central  dis- 
tinction which  made  the  New  Testament  what  it 
is,  namely,  the  nearness  of  the  body  of  these  writ- 
ings to  the  impulse  which  went  out  from  Christ. 

Nevertheless,  there  is  for  us,  just  this  degree  of 
unquestionable  truth  in  the  above  contention.  For 
us,  in  the  discussion  of  the  Hterature  which  in  this 
lecture  especially  engages  us,  to  carry  back  into 
the  century  from  the  death  of  Paul  to  the  death  of 
Justin,  roundly  the  century  from  the  year  65  to 
the  year  165,  a  distinction  of  which  Justin,  devout 
Christian  that  he  was,  had  hardly  yet  thought, 
would  be  eminently  unhistorical.  If  we  desire  to 
gain  for  ourselves  a  realization  of  the  way  in  which 
the  literature  which  we  know  as  the  canonical  ap- 
peared to  the  men  of  those  generations,  we  must 
divest  ourselves  altogether  of  the  notion  of  the  New 
Testament  Canon.  We  must  realize  that  we  have 
gone  back  to  the  time  when  there  was  no  New 
Testament,  and  only  the  faint  dawn  of  the  idea 


44        WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

that  there  was  going  to  be  one.  We  have  gone 
back  to  the  time  when  the  Old  Testament  would 
not  have  been  called  the  Old,  because  it  was  the 
only  Testament. 

The  phrase,  "  the  old  testament,"  in  so  far  as  it 
was  used,  carried  the  sense  of  the  book  of  the 
ancient  covenant  with  the  fathers.  The  phrase 
translated  ''new  testament"  could  mean  only 
the  "new  covenant,"  "new  dispensation."^  We 
have  gone  back  to  the  time  when  there  were 
many  more  collections  of  Jesus'  sayings,  frag- 
ments concerning  his  doings,  beginnings  of 
Gospels,  and  Gospels,  than  our  four.  Some 
of  these  were  read  in  the  services  for  worship 
along  with  or  in  place  of  some  of  the  four.  In 
not  all  places  had  the  four  been  got  together. 
Men  loved  the  oral  testimony  to  the  grace  and 
truth  which  had  been  in  Jesus  Christ  better  than 
they  loved  the  written  substitute.  We  have  put 
ourselves  back  in  the  time  when  there  were  many 
more  letters  of  apostolic  men  than  those  of  Paul 
and  Peter  and  the  rest.  The  word  apostle  had 
for  the  time  gained,  and  had  not  yet  again  lost,  a 
sense  which  made  the  glorious  company  of  the 
apostles  far  larger  than  that  of  the  Twelve.  The 
name  was  applied  to  any  man  who  bore  Christ's 
message  to  the  world.  Prophets  came  still  claim- 
ing inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  spoke  to  the 
churches  as  Paul,  in  the  Corinthian  letter,  lets  them 
do.     There  was  at  least  one  apocalypse,  much  less 

1  2  Corinthians  iii.  6. 


WITNESS    OF    THE   EARLIEST   LITERATURE        45 

intensely  Jewish  than  our  Book  of  the  Revelation, 
and  almost  as  much  loved  where  men  loved  that 
kind  of  thing  at  all.  And  where  it  was  rejected 
our  Apocalypse  was  rejected  too.  We  have  gone 
back  to  the  time  when  the  little  isolated  Christian 
communities  were  themselves  the  judges  what  books 
they  found  themselves  edified  in  Christ  to  have 
heard  read.  It  was  the  time  when  the  bishop  was 
a  man  from  out  the  circle  of  the  elder  persons, 
with  God's  gift  of  a  blameless  life,  who  led  the 
observance  of  the  Communion,  spoke  the  good 
word,  and  administered  the  little  charity,  when  no 
apostle  or  prophet  happened  to  be  present.  It  was 
the  time  when  as  yet  there  was  no  creed,  nor  the 
beginnings  of  any,  beyond  the  belief  in  Jesus 
Christ,  through  whom  the  will  of  God  for  our 
salvation  was  made  known.  Forgiveness,  resur- 
rection, the  good  life,  the  Holy  Ghost  in  all  men's 
hearts,  —  these  were  the  tenets,  which  each  man 
framed  much  in  his  own  way.  The  bond  of  union 
was  not  book,  bishop,  creed,  not  any  one,  nor  all 
of  these  combined.  It  was  the  bare  being  com- 
mitted to  the  following  of  Jesus  Christ.  The  great 
duty  of  the  Christians  was,  in  word  and  life,  to 
bring  to  mankind  the  message  in  which  they  had 
been  blessed.  And  yet  out  of  these  simple  ele- 
ments, these  simple  people  gathered  the  convic- 
tion, each  least  upper-room  conventicle  of  them 
gathered  the  subHme  self-consciousness,  that  they 
were  the  representatives,  the  illustration,  of  the 
eternal  kingdom  of  God  upon  earth.      And  over 


46        WITNESS    OF    THE   EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

all  swayed  the  vision  that  the  toil  and  suffering 
were  not  for  long.  The  Christ  would  come  again. 
Not  all  of  these  traits  which  I  have  delineated  can 
be  noted  equally  in  all  places.  Not  all  of  them 
mark  uniformly  the  whole  time  of  which  we  speak. 
Some  of  them  fade  out  toward  the  end  of  it. 
Nevertheless,  in  motive,  in  principle  and  atmos- 
phere, this  is  the  background  against  which  we 
have  to  paint. 

And  of  course,  this  being  the  case,  we  have  to 
treat  the  writings  which  we  later  know  as  the  New 
Testament  ones,  just  as  they  stood,  in  the  midst  of 
other  literature  of  their  time.  This  is  the  more 
easy  to  do,  because  practically  all  of  the  literature 
of  the  period  is  of  one  or  another  of  the  kinds 
which  we  find  represented  in  the  New  Testament. 
There  are,  namely,  letters,  apocalypses,  gospels, 
and,  just  at  the  end,  one  little  book  of  instruction 
for  converts  with  the  emphasis  all  upon  life  and 
not  upon  doctrine,  "The  Teaching  of  the  Twelve 
Apostles,"  as  it  is  called,  a  most  suggestive  con- 
trast to  the  Apostles'  Creed. 

We  may  repeat  what  we  said  in  the  first  lecture 
that  it  is  not  our  task  to  speak  in  detail  of  the 
origin  and  content  of  the  writings  which  afterward 
became  New  Testament.  And  yet,  of  course,  we 
cannot  pass  by  these  altogether.  Our  main  in- 
terest, however,  Ues  with  those  writings  of  the 
period  which  did  not  become  New  Testament. 
And,  in  a  general  way,  we  may  say  beforehand 
that  the  questions  which  we  shall  seek  to  answer, 


WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        4/ 

by  the  aid  of  these  writings,  are  two.  We  shall 
ask,  Which  of  the  books  that  afterward  became 
canonical  did  each  one  of  these  uncanonical  writers 
know  ?  Then  also,  we  must  inquire,  In  what  light 
did  each  regard  those  writings  which  he  did  know  ? 
We  shall  thus  be  able  to  observe  how  the  frag- 
ments of  what  is  to  be  the  New  Testament,  one 
originating  here,  one  there,  and  scattered  up  and 
down  the  earth,  begin,  with  time,  to  find  them- 
selves together,  and  how  there  dawns  upon  the 
generations  the  sense  of  the  unique  thing  which 
these  books  together  constitute. 

We  begin  with  the  letters.  The  oldest  book  in 
our  New  Testament  is  a  letter,  probably  the  first 
of  Paul  to  the  Thessalonians.  The  first  spreading 
of  the  gospel  was  the  work  of  persons.  There  is 
no  letter,  not  even  the  most  elaborate  and  doctri- 
nal one  of  Paul,  which  does  not  bear  full  witness 
to  this  fact.  And  halfway  down  our  period, 
not  the  least  precious  treasure  of  certain  Asiatic 
churches  were  similar  letters  of  two  apostolic  men, 
Ignatius  and  Polycarp.  We  have  no  cause  to  think 
of  these  men  as  consciously  imitating  Paul  in  their 
manner  of  writing.  It  was  the  manner  in  which 
they  would  naturally  write,  as  they  also  faced 
perils  and  gave  counsel  to  the  flock  of  God. 

The  main  letters  of  Paul  were  written,  accord- 
ing to  our  best  knowledge,  between  the  years 
48  and  58.  Portions  also  of  the  Pastorals  be- 
long before  the  year  64.  These  Pauline  letters 
contain    a    good     part    of    all     the    information 


48        WITNESS    OF   THE   EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

touching  the  life  and  thought  of  that  time 
which  has  come  down  to  us.  But  nothing 
could  be  more  obvious  than  the  casual  and  occa- 
sional character  of  these  writings.  First  Thessa- 
lonians,  indeed,  contains  the  injunction  that  the 
letter  shall  be  solemnly  read  to  the  whole  assembly 
of  the  Christians. 1  At  the  end  of  the  Colossian 
letter  is  an  injunction  that  when  it  shall  have  been 
read  to  the  Colossian  community,  it  shall  be  ex- 
changed for  a  letter  which  the  Apostle  has  written 
to  the  Laodiceans.2  But  nowhere  is  an  intimation 
which,  in  the  remotest  way,  looks  toward  the  posi- 
tion which  these  Epistles,  later,  assumed  in  the 
Christian  church.  So  vivid  are  they  in  their  de- 
lineation, so  practical  in  their  instruction,  that 
oftentimes  the  emergency  which  called  out  a  given 
letter  can  be  appreciated  by  us  even  in  consider- 
able detail.  On  the  other  hand,  we  should  be 
gravely  mistaken  did  we  deem  that  these  are  but 
such  casual  letters  as  a  man  might  to-day  dash  off 
by  quick  delivery  and  to-morrow  contradict  by 
telegraph.  Difficulties  of  communication  may,  per- 
haps, be  thanked  for  the  fact  that  these  letters  are 
no  hasty  improvisation.  The  profound  reflection, 
the  disposition  of  material,  the  skill  in  marshaUing 
of  arguments,  the  art  in  presentation,  the  fortunate 
illustrations,  all  betray  that  their  author  spared  no 
labor,  and  that  the  letters  were  intended  to  pro- 
duce permanent  effect.  All  of  this,  which  is  the 
mark  of  the  author's  genius,  and  beyond  these 
1  I  Thessalonians  v.  27.  ^  Colossians  iv.  16. 


WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        49 

qualities,  of  course,  the  greatness  of  their  subject, 
serves  to  explain  the  fact  that  letters  which,  in 
one  sense,  are  but  products  of  occasion,  have  yet 
stood  in  the  short  index  of  the  world's  greatest 
literature.  This  they  do,  judged  merely  by  the 
standards  of  literature.  And  the  time  came  when 
the  church  looked  back  upon  the  production  of 
these  letters  as  part  of  the  plan  of  God  for  the 
guidance  of  the  race. 

It  is  well  known  that  the  Tubingen  criticism 
seventy  years  ago  began  at  this  point  of  the 
Pauline  Epistles.  The  extreme  writers  of  that 
school  left  but  four  Epistles  to  the  Pauline  author- 
ship, namely,  that  to  the  Romans,  the  First  and 
Second  to  the  Corinthians,  and  that  to  the  Gala- 
tians.  Investigation  since  then,  and  more  particu- 
larly in  our  own  time,  has  worked  steadily  toward 
the  enlargement  of  the  area  of  that  which  is 
assigned  to  Paul.  This  trend  is  conspicuous  in 
the  main  work  upon  the  history  of  Christian  litera- 
ture in  the  first  three  centuries,  which  has  appeared 
within  the  last  ten  years.^  Beside  the  four  letters 
named  above,  the  First  Thessalonians,  Philippians, 
and  Philemon  are  by  the  large  majority,  even  of 
the  left  wing  among  critics,  acknowledged  as  of 
Paul.  On  the  other  hand  the  Pastorals,  that  is  the 
First  and  Second  Epistles  to  Timothy  and  the  one 
to  Titus,  are,  in  their  present  form,  at  any  rate, 

1  Harnack,  Geschichte  der  alt-christlichen  Litteratur  bis  Eusebius, 
Leipzig,  1893  ;   ^^^  Chronologie  der  alt-christlichen  Litteratur  bis 
Eusebius,  Bd.  L,  Leipzig,  1897. 
E 


50        WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST   LITERATURE 

defended  by  but  few.  Nearly  upon  all  hands,  it 
is  deemed  that  the  development  of  doctrine  and  of 
government  which  they  imply,  compels  us  to  think 
that  they  have  been  rewritten.  How  lightly  they 
may  have  been  touched  over,  how  much  of  genuine 
Pauline  material  lies  behind  and  has  been  taken 
up  into  them,  is  of  course  another  question.  A 
good  deal  of  such  material  seems  assured.  Colos- 
sians  in  some  part,  and  Second  Thessalonians  and 
Ephesians  in  whole,  are  assigned  by  many  to  Paul- 
ine circles,  to  Pauline  influence,  but  to  dates  later 
than  the  life  of  Paul  himself.  And  yet,  even  con- 
cerning these,  many  of  the  best  scholars  are  of 
the  opinion  that  it  is  not  impossible  to  answer  the 
arguments  against  their  Pauhne  authorship.^ 

As  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews,  which  does 
not  even  claim  to  be  by  Paul,  we  shall  have  occa- 
sion many  times  in  this  history  to  note  how  long 
and  in  how  many  quarters  this  letter  was  refused 
admission  into  the  Canon  because  men  knew  that 
it  was  not  written  by  Paul.  In  the  end  it  found  its 
place  in  the  Canon,  probably  because  men  had 
come  to  think  that  it  was  by  Paul.  But  for  that 
supposition,  in  those  later  days,  it  would  have 
been  shut  out.  And  yet  Calvin  truly  said  of  it 
that,  despite  the  fact  that  we  do  not  know  its 
authorship,  there  are  few  books  in  the  Canon  which 
for  spiritual  content  are  more  worthy  of  their 
place.    Men  have  surmised  in  Barnabas,  in  Apollos, 

1  See  Jiilicher,  Einleitung  in  das  Neue  Testament,  Freiburg, 
1894,  p.  34. 


WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE         $1 

the  author,  and  even  in  Priscilla  the  authoress. 
We  have  no  difficulty  in  thinking  that,  of  this 
noble  and  original,  this  profoundly  spiritual  inter- 
pretation of  Christ's  gospel,  the  author  may  remain 
forever  unknown.  Before  the  making  of  the  Canon 
men  had  been  edified  by  books  concerning  which 
they  did  not  even  ask  the  authorship.  But,  ex- 
actly in  the  heat  and  stress  which  created  the 
Canon  the  principle  of  admitting  books  of  un- 
known authorship  would  hardly  have  been  allowed. 

Of  the  seven  little  letters  addressed  to  the 
Christian  world  at  large,  and  hence  called  the 
catholic  Epistles,  four,  as  we  shall  see,  had  a  hard 
time  to  gain  their  place  in  the  Canon,  and  one  of 
them,  Second  Peter,  has  no  certain  external  wit- 
ness for  its  existence  before  the  time  of  Origen. 
First  Peter  has  better  evidence  on  its  behalf  than 
the  others,  and  First  John  clearly  stands  with  the 
Fourth  Gospel.  As  to  them  all,  we  may  say  that 
the  letters  are  of  so  small  compass  that  the  absence 
of  citation  from  them  in  this  or  that  period  should 
not  be  given  too  much  weight. 

Several  letters  of  Paul  seem  to  have  been  lost. 
There  is  the  allusion  to  the  Laodicean  letter  of 
which  we  spoke.  There  must  have  been  one,^ 
and  there  may  have  been  two,^  other  letters  to  the 
Corinthians.  The  author  of  the  Muratori  Frag- 
ment knows  of  letters  to  Laodiceans  and  Alexan- 
drians, but  he  directly  declares  them  to  have  had 
their  origin  within  the  heretical  sects. 

1 1  Corinthians  v.  9.  ^  2  Corinthians  ii.  3. 


52        WITNESS   OF   THE   EARLIEST   LITERATURE 

Outside  of  the  writings  which  have  become 
canonical,  the  first  letter  is  one  of  the  Roman  com- 
munity to  the  Corinthian  community  on  the  occa- 
sion of  strife  in  the  latter  church.  The  letter  is  an 
interesting  index  that  the  Roman  church  early  felt 
responsibility,  and  assumed  leadership  of  all  the 
rest.  The  Epistle  can  hardly  have  been  written 
after  the  year  lOO.  The  name  of  the  bishop  who 
wrote  it  does  not  appear.  But  there  is  nothing 
against  the  tradition  that  he  was  the  Clement  who 
stands  as  the  third  bishop,  counting  Peter.  By  no 
means  secure,  on  the  other  hand,  is  the  identifica- 
tion of  this  Clement  with  the  Consul  Flavins 
Clemens  whom  his  cousin,  the  Emperor  Domitian, 
put  to  death  for  base  withdrawal  from  the  service 
of  the  State.  It  would  be  interesting  if  the  Chris- 
tian propaganda  had  so  early  reached  the  highest 
places.  Paul's  phrase,  "they  of  Caesar's  house- 
hold," probably  means  only  slaves.^  But  weary 
people  in  the  highest  station  were  seeking  Hght 
and  peace  in  those  dreadful  days  as  the  old  world 
began  to  decline.  On  the  other  hand,  almost  a 
fourth  part  of  the  Epistle  which  we  are  discussing 
is  made  up  of  Old  Testament  quotations.  And 
such  familiarity  with  the  Old  Testament  would  be 
astonishing  in  one  born  in  imperial  circles.  It  is 
easier  for  us  to  think  of  some  freedman,  who  had 
the  right  to  bear  the  Flavian  name. 

Almost  the  very  occasion  of  the  letter  gives  it  a 
certain  resemblance  to  the  Pauline  letters  to  the 

1  Philippians  iv.  22. 


WITNESS   OF   THE    EARLIEST   LITERATURE        53 

same  church.  The  author  speaks  of  himself  as 
one  who  follows  in  the  footsteps  of  Paul,  bearing 
upon  his  heart  the  interests  of  all  the  churches. 
Beside  the  Corinthians,  Clement  knows  Paul's 
letter  to  his  own  church,  the  Roman.  He  knows 
also  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  and  has  been  very 
deeply  influenced  by  it.  There  seem  to  be  traces 
also  of  the  First  Epistle  of  Peter  and  of  that  of 
James.  There  is  no  disposition  to  place  writings 
subsequently  in  the  New  Testament  Canon,  even 
though  they  are  thus  often  quoted,  on  the  same 
footing  with  the  Old  Testament.  On  the  other 
hand,  Clement  of  Alexandria  holds  Clement  of 
Rome  among  the  sacred  writers. 

Much  the  same  state  of  things  obtains  as  to  the 
so-called  Epistle  of  Barnabas.  Clement  of  Alex- 
andria 1  counted  it  among  the  sacred  writings  and 
Origen  ^  called  it  a  cathoHc  letter.  In  the  single 
Latin  translation  which  we  have,  it  stands  next  the 
Epistle  of  James.  Until  Eusebius  no  one  seems 
to  have  doubted  that  it  was  the  work  of  the  com- 
panion of  Paul's  journeyings.  And  yet  the  misstate- 
ments in  the  book  concerning  Jewish  ceremonial 
can  hardly  be  attributed  to  Barnabas,  who  was  a 
Levite.  The  book  is  marked,  moreover,  by  the 
most  extreme  antagonism  to  everything  Jewish. 
The  author  has  used  the  letters  to  the  Romans, 
Corinthians,  and  First  Thessalonians,  and  gospel 
material  of  a  type  especially  near  to  that  of 
Matthew.     Barnabas  has  the  phrase,  "He  said," 

^  Eusebius,  H.  E.  vi.  14.  i.  2  Contra  Celsum,  i.  63. 


54        WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

without  any  noun  for  subject,  as  if  no  name  were 
necessary  to  introduce  the  word  which  Jesus  used. 
Under  the  name  of  Ignatius  quite  a  number  of 
letters  have  come  down  to  us.  The  tradition  names 
Ignatius  as  the  second  bishop  of  Antioch,  and  he  is 
supposed  to  have  died  the  martyr's  death  at  Rome 
under  Trajan,  that  is,  before  the  year  117.  There 
are  seven  of  these  letters,  in  the  form  of  their 
transmission  which  is  now  most  generally  credited ; 
namely,  letters  to  the  communities  at  Ephesus, 
Magnesia,  Tralles,  Philadelphia,  Smyrna,  and 
Rome,  and  a  letter  to  Polycarp.  They  purport  to 
have  been  written  by  Ignatius  on  his  journey  to 
Rome  under  an  escort  of  soldiers.  They  give 
thanks  for  the  kindness  which  has  been  shown 
him  in  the  cities  through  which  he  has  passed,  and 
warn  against  division  and  errors  in  the  church. 
The  Roman  letter  speaks  out  his  ardent  desire  for 
martyrdom.  If  we  except  the  letter  to  the  Romans 
and  that  to  Polycarp,  the  resemblance  of  these  let- 
ters the  one  to  the  other,  the  repetition  of  the  main 
ideas  in  them  all,  and  their  artificial  character,  have 
caused  some  to  doubt  if  we  have  not  here  to  do 
with  a  deliberate  forgery.  But  these  qualities  are, 
to  say  the  least,  not  more  likely  in  the  work  of  a 
man  who  would  undertake  a  shrewd  deception,  than 
in  that  of  a  zealous  man  of  no  remarkable  ability. 
The  eagerness  of  the  writer  on  behalf  of  the  gov- 
ernment of  a  single  bishop  in  the  local  church  has 
made  men  doubt  whether  the  letters  can  possibly 
be  given  such  an  early  date.     Curiously  enough. 


WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        55 

nothing  is  said  concerning  the  situation  as  regards 
administration  in  the  Roman  church.  And  as  re- 
lates to  the  situation  in  the  Asiatic  churches,  it  is 
not  easy  to  make  out  how  far  the  author  describes 
a  condition  which  existed  in  his  time,  and  how  far 
he  dehneates  a  condition  which  he  much  desires  to 
have  exist.  We  know  too  Httle  of  the  stages  of  the 
development  of  organization,  and  for  that  matter, 
even  of  doctrine,  in  the  different  portions  of  the 
empire  in  the  early  part  of  the  second  century,  to 
make  that  knowledge,  in  more  than  very  general 
way,  the  basis  of  inference  as  to  the  age  of  docu- 
ments. To  Ignatius'  mind  the  testimony  of  the 
Apostles  exists  only  in  their  letters.  Most  of  the 
letters  of  Paul  seem  to  have  been  known  to  him. 
He  has  not  certainly  any  one  of  the  Synoptists 
except  Matthew.  But  a  passage  from  the  Gospel 
according  to  the  Hebrews  is  cited  as  a  word  of  the 
Lord.  He  thinks  of  the  Christian  inspiration  as 
still  common  to  all.  It  is  not  simply  a  quahty  of 
Apostles.  It  is  a  gift  and  grace  of  God  which  fits 
men  for  deeds  and  personal  life,  as  well  as  for  the 
writing  of  books. 

Under  the  name  of  Polycarp  there  has  come 
down  to  us  a  letter  to  the  Philippians.  Irenasus 
relates  that  he  himself,  as  a  youth,  had  often  seen 
Polycarp  and  heard  him  preach  and  tell  of  his  in- 
tercourse with  the  Apostle  John  and  with  others 
of  the  followers  of  our  Lord.^  Polycarp  died  a 
martyr  on  the  23d  of  February  in  the  year  155, 

^  Eusebius,  H.  E.  v.  20.  8. 


56        WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

at  the  age  of  eighty-six,  or  very  possibly  still  older. 
For  he  answers  to  the  proconsul  who  would  per- 
suade him  to  make  concessions  and  thus  save 
himself  from  the  stake :  "  Eighty  and  six  years 
have  I  served  my  Master.  How  then  can  I 
blaspheme  my  King  }  "  ^  It  is  quite  possible,  there- 
fore, that  he  means  to  say,  that  these  years  have 
elapsed  since  his  baptism,  rather  than  that  they 
indicate  the  whole  length  of  his  life.  The  authen- 
ticity of  the  letter  in  our  hands  hangs  together 
with  the  question  of  the  Ignatian  literature.  Ac- 
cording to  Jerome,  the  letter  was  in  his  time,  that 
is,  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  read  in  Asia 
Minor  in  services  for  worship.  It  is  written  in  a 
beautiful  spirit,  indicating  to  the  Philippians  the 
foundation  of  their  faith  and  reminding  them  of 
the  duties  which  rested  upon  all  Christians,  but 
especially  upon  the  leaders  in  the  community.  He 
recalls  to  the  Philippians  that  they  have  a  letter 
of  Paul  in  their  possession.  Besides  large  use  of 
this  Pauline  letter  to  the  Philippians,  Polycarp 
cites  nine  others  of  the  Pauline  letters.  He 
seems  to  have  known  also  First  Peter  and  First 
John.  Words  of  Jesus  are  cited  directly  three 
times  in  forms  from  Matthew,  and  there  are  remi- 
niscences from  all  the  other  Gospels.  He  quotes 
freely  from  Clement. 

Passing  now  from  letters  to  books  of  the  class 
to  which  our  Book  of  the  Revelation  belongs,  we 
have  to  note  the  fact  that,  strange  as  it  may  seem 

1  Eusebius,  J/,  E.  iv.  15.  20. 


WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE         5/ 

to  US,  there  was  no  type  of  literature  which  the 
early  Christians  of  the  West  more  dearly  loved. 
To  understand  the  type  we  have  to  think  for  a 
moment  of  the  later  Hebrew  literature.  The  great 
prophetical  books  of  the  Old  Testament  had  been 
books  of  moral  insight.  Their  authors  were  often 
men  of  political  significance,  reformers  and  popu- 
lar leaders.  But  with  the  desperate  misery  of 
the  later  time  came  the  disposition  to  paint  in 
glowing  colors  the  external  features  of  the  hope 
and  future  of  God's  people  in  this  world  or  in  the 
next,  the  glory  of  the  Jews,  and  the  dreadful  ven- 
geance which  would  be  taken  upon  their  enemies. 
A  considerable  part  of  the  Book  of  Daniel  is  of 
this  sort.  One  recalls  the  Book  of  Enoch.  Now, 
it  would  have  been  strange  if  in  the  times  of  the 
agony  of  the  church  under  Nero,  Domitian,  and 
Hadrian,  from  among  Jewish  Christians,  or  from 
men  familiar  with  this  apocalyptic  Hterature,  some- 
thing of  the  sort  had  not  come  forth.  That  our 
Book  of  the  Revelation  is  a  work  of  this  kind  no 
one  can  doubt.  Many  of  its  difficulties  are  con- 
siderably diminished,  so  soon  as  this  fact  is  recog- 
nized. The  first  three  chapters  are  only  setting. 
The  letters  to  seven  Asiatic  churches  are  most 
interesting,  in  light  of  the  letters  of  which  we  have 
just  been  speaking.  But  then  comes  the  great 
series  of  visions,  so  intensely  Jewish  in  tone,  so 
slight  in  the  admixture  of  Christian  elements,  that 
it  is  small  wonder  if  men  have  come  to  think  this 
part  of  the  Apocalypse   to  be   actually  a  Jewish 


58        WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

writing,  only  lightly  touched  over  by  a  Christian 
hand.  The  concentration  of  all  attention  upon 
the  future,  the  spirit  of  revengefulness,  the  mys- 
terious outlines  of  falling  states,  are  all  explicable 
from  this  point  of  view.  But  yet  passages  like 
that  of  the  praise  of  the  one  hundred  and  forty- 
four  thousand  are  beautiful  beyond  almost  any- 
thing that  Christian  poet  ever  sung.  The  general 
consensus  seems  to  be  that  the  book  was  written, 
that  is,  the  Christian  part  of  it,  toward  the  end 
of  the  reign  of  Domitian,  who  died  in  96  a.d., 
although  a  part  of  the  book  would  seem  to  belong 
to  the  time  of  Nero  or  to  the  time  immediately 
after  Nero.  Of  the  Jewish  part,  if  we  admit 
that  it  was  a  separate  document  or  made  up  from 
separate  documents,  it  is  impossible  to  assign  the 
date. 

Since  Justin's  time  at  any  rate,  the  book  has 
passed  for  a  work  of  the  son  of  Zebedee.  But 
in  Alexandria  about  the  year  260  Dionysius  was 
sure  that  it  must  have  been  the  work  of  another 
John,  a  presbyter.  The  Roman  Caius  ascribed 
it  even  to  Cerinthus,  the  arch-heretic.  In  Asia 
Minor,  the  country  of  its  supposed  origin,  the 
Alogoi  rejected  it.  Strangely  enough  the  Ro- 
mans loved  it,  while  the  East,  and  especially  the 
Greeks,  would  have  none  of  it.  No  book  in  the 
New  Testament  had  such  varied  and  dramatic 
fortunes  and  so  hard  a  struggle  to  gain  a  place 
in  the  Canon.  The  same  remark  might  be  made 
which  we  made  as  to  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 


WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE         59 

that  the  book  probably  came  into  the  Canon  under 
the  apprehension  that  it  was  the  work  of  an  Apostle. 
But  we  shall  have  abundant  opportunity  to  observe 
that  to  a  large  part  of  the  world  that  supposition 
came  very  hard. 

Side  by  side  with  this  Apocalypse  of  John,  an 
Apocalypse  of  Peter  seems  very  early  to  have  been 
known  in  churchly  circles,  and  long  to  have  passed 
as  Holy  Scripture.  The  Muratori  Canon  has  it  in 
the  list  of  sacred  books.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
commented  upon  it.  Decisively  rejected  by  Euse- 
bius,^  it  was  yet  publicly  read  in  church  services 
in  Palestine  in  the  fifth  century,  according  to 
Sozomen.2  The  book  had  been  known  to  us 
prior  to  1892  only  in  a  few  bare  scraps  of  cita- 
tion. But  a  considerable  portion  of  it  was  found 
in  the  grave  of  a  monk  at  Akhmim  in  Upper 
Egypt  by  Bouriant,  and  pubhshed  by  him  in  the 
year  named.  The  work  has  very  little  in  common 
with  the  Apocalypse  of  John.  It  suggests  rather 
the  Jewish  (or  Christian)  so-called  Sibyllines.  It 
has  little  or  no  relation  to  the  Gospel  according  to 
Peter,  but  many  points  of  contact  with  the  Second 
Epistle  of  Peter.  It  moves  in  a  circle  of  ideas  and 
pictures  which  are  of  Greek,  presumably  of  Orphic, 
origin.  The  vision  of  the  torments  of  hell  pre- 
pares one  for  that  in  which  the  Middle  Ages  took 
such  dehght.  The  might  of  Dante  and  Milton 
have  almost  given  this  mythology  a  Christian  stand- 
ing.    One  turns  the  pages  of  this  little  book,  and 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  iii.  25.  4.  2  Sozomen,  H.  E.  vii.  19. 


60        WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

muses  and  asks  himself :  What  if  it  had  found  a 
place  within  the  Christian  Canon  ? 

A  book  which  we  know  much  better  than  the 
one  just  named  passes  under  the  title,  the  Shepherd 
of  Hermas.  It  was  counted  as  Sacred  Scripture 
by  Irenaeus,  by  Tertullian  before  he  became  a 
Montanist,^  by  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  by 
Origen.  On  the  contrary,  the  Muratori  Canon 
says  of  it  that,  though  many  loved  it,  it  must  not 
be  counted  among  the  Scriptures  because,  the 
author  continues,  "  We  know  that  it  was  not  writ- 
ten by  an  Apostle,  but  by  a  brother  of  our  Roman 
Bishop  Pius,  almost  in  our  own  time."  Eusebius 
deemed  that  it  might  be  used  in  the  instruction 
of  the  catechumens.  Athanasius,  expressing  the 
same  judgment,  enumerates  it  with  the  Didache 
and  with  some  of  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha. 
Yet  it  maintained  its  place  in  many  Bibles  far 
down  into  the  Middle  Ages.  The  book  gets 
its  name  from  the  guide  and  interpreter  of  the 
author  in  his  visions,  a  kind  of  Virgil  to  his  Dante. 
The  purpose  is  an  energetic  call,  to  the  whole  of 
Christendom,  to  repent  of  the  lax  and  sinful  life 
in  which  it  is  sunken,  since  the  end  of  the  world 
and  the  coming  of  Christ  to  judgment  is  nigh. 
The  author  was  a  Greek  who  had  been  a  slave, 
and  betrays  extraordinary  familiarity  with  the  Old 
Testament.     He  seems  to  have  written  after  the 

1  See  Tertullian,  Or  at.  i6,  and  cf.  Pudic.  lo.  20,  v.  See  Kriiger, 
Geschichte  der  alt-christlichen  Literatur  in  den  ersten  drei  Jahr- 
hunderten,  Leipzig,  1895,  P*  ^S* 


WITNESS    OF    THE   EARLIEST    LITERATURE        6 1 

year  130.  Apart  from  those  from  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, there  is  not  a  verbally  accurate  citation  in 
the  whole  book.  It  is  as  if  the  author  quoted 
his  Christian  materials  from  memory.  Curiously 
enough  the  Apocalypse  is  never  mentioned.  The 
synoptic  tradition  is  used.  There  is  almost 
nothing  from  Paul ;  but  First  Peter  and  James  are 
known.  The  most  extravagant  reverence  is  ac- 
corded to  the  very  letter  of  the  Old  Testament. 
What  stands  beside  this  inspiration  of  the  Old 
Testament  is  the  gift  of  the  Holy  Ghost  to  all 
believers,  including  indeed  the  Apostles,  but  ex- 
tending to  Hermas  himself,  the  chosen  prophet 
of  God.  It  is  not  until  after  this  sense  of  the 
inspiration  of  all  men  under  the  new  covenant 
disappears,  as  it  gradually  does,  that  the  notion 
of  the  exclusive  inspiration  of  books  of  the  New 
Testament,  as  such,  arises. 

Not  any  one  of  our  canonical  Gospels  reaches 
back  with  certainty  into  the  time  before  the  year 
70,  the  year  of  Titus'  destruction  of  Jerusalem. 
But  assuredly  to  this  period  before  the  year  70 
belongs  the  fixing,  in  no  small  degree,  of  the  oral 
tradition  concerning  Jesus  in  the  form  in  which 
it  reappears  in  our  Synoptics.  To  this  time  also 
belong  with  some  certainty  written  documents 
which  are  the  antecedents  of  our  Gospels.  The 
main  witnesses  to  the  Hfe  of  Jesus  were  for  a 
long  time  within  the  Jerusalem  community.  The 
substance  of  the  synoptic  Gospels  bears  the  marks 
of  this  origin  in  the  midst  of  the  mother  commu« 


62        WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

nity.  From  thence  the  story  of  the  sayings  and  of 
the  deeds  of  Jesus  was  carried  through  Palestine 
and  beyond  its  borders,  and  the  tradition  carefully 
preserved.  One  must  infer  that,  even  in  many 
regions  covered  by  the  missionary  activity  of  Paul, 
the  information  concerning  Jesus  had  already  pene- 
trated. Nothing  is  further  from  the  purpose  of 
Paul's  letters  than  the  conveying  of  such  informa- 
tion. The  life  of  the  historical  Jesus  is  hardly 
alluded  to  in  his  Epistles.  Nothing  leads  us  to 
think  that  Paul  had  previously  conveyed  this  in- 
formation to  all,  at  any  rate,  of  those  for  whom 
he  wrote.  In  Rome  there  was  a  matured  Christian 
life  in  a  community  which  he  had  never  visited  at 
the  time  in  which  he  wrote. 

Eusebius  preserves  the  ancient  opinion  that 
Matthew  had  written  down  in  Aramaic  "  Sayings  " 
of  Jesus.^  It  is  not  possible  to  think  that  this 
statement  refers  to  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  as  we 
have  it.  But  it  may  well  describe  the  document, 
or  at  least  one  of  the  documents,  which  lies  at  the 
basis  of  Matthew  and  perhaps  also  of  Luke.  As 
to  the  problem  of  the  relation  of  the  three  synop- 
tic Gospels,  the  one  to  the  other,  and  to  common 
sources,  the  agreement,  even  verbal,  among  them 
is  so  great,  and  yet  the  differences  are  so  striking, 
that  the  question  may  be  said  to  be  the  most  diffi- 
cult to  which  BibHcal  criticism  has  addressed  itself. 
The  discussion  has  passed  through  stages  and 
phases  which  it  would  be  difficult  even  to  enumer- 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  iii.  39.  16. 


WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        63 

ate.  And  yet  certain  results  may  be  deemed  to 
have  emerged,  which  are,  with  tolerable  unanimity, 
acknowledged.  One  of  these  results  is  the  priority 
of  Mark.  Another,  is  the  fact  that  the  Gospel  of 
Mark  was  a  main  source  for  the  writers  of  both 
the  Gospel  according  to  Matthew  and  that  accord- 
ing to  Luke.  At  the  same  time,  there  is  much 
that  is  common  to  Matthew  and  Luke  which  does 
not  appear  in  Mark.  This  material  is  mainly 
teaching.  One  thinks  at  once  of  the  "  Sayings  " 
above  alluded  to.  And  beside  this,  about  a  fourth 
part  of  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  and  again  of  that 
of  Luke  cannot  be  referred  to  either  Mark  or  the 
**  Sayings,"  and  is  not  common  to  Matthew  and 
Luke.  This  fourth  part  many  are  inclined  to 
refer  to  the  oral  tradition.  Against  this  last  opin- 
ion, in  part,  it  should,  however,  be  said  that  the 
discourses  in  Luke,  which  belong  to  the  Peraean 
ministry  of  Jesus,  have  all  the  marks  of  having 
been  taken  from  a  written  and  not  from  an  oral 
source. 

In  the  Gentile  churches  the  number  of  men  who 
could  claim  to  have  been  eye-witnesses  had  been, 
from  the  beginning,  small.  That  the  movement 
toward  literary  deposit  of  the  tradition  was  gather- 
ing headway  may  be  inferred  from  the  preface  to 
Luke.  The  old  Judaic  influence  is  strong  in  Mark 
and  Matthew,  the  Gentile  and  Pauline  influence  is 
stronger  in  Luke.  But  the  Fourth  Gospel  is  the 
great  enigma  of  gospel  criticism.  It  builds  upon 
all  three  of  the  Synoptics,  particularly  upon  Luke, 


64        WITNESS    OF   THE   EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

although  Eusebius'  story  of  the  intentional  sup- 
plementing of  the  Synoptics  is  hardly  true.^  It 
would  seem  that  the  Gospel  must  rest  upon  authen- 
tic reminiscences  of  Jesus.  For  spiritual  insight  and 
revelation  of  the  personality,  it  surpasses  anything 
which  otherwise  the  tradition  concerning  Jesus 
holds.  At  the  same  time,  this  Gospel  shows  a  re- 
flection, an  adaptation  of  Christ's  ideas  to  the  pro- 
foundest  intellectual  life  of  the  time,  the  beginning 
of  the  movement  toward  giving  Christianity  a  place 
in  the  system  of  the  world's  thought,  which  is  very 
hard  to  think  of  as  the  work  of  the  son  of  Zebedee. 
It  is  hopeless  to  try  to  separate  the  prologue, 
and  a  few  touches  here  and  there  from  the  narra- 
tive at  large,  and  then  to  say  that  we  have  thus, 
on  one  side  the  interpretative  element,  and  on  the 
other  the  ancient  tradition  from  the  disciple  whom 
Jesus  loved.  The  opal  coloring,  the  combination 
of  elements  in  amazing  perfectness  of  fusion,  runs 
from  end  to  end.  The  inestimably  precious  and 
original  material,  the  most  profound  and  moving 
which  is  given  us  concerning  Jesus  at  all,  has  yet 
been  worked  over  from  a  new  point  of  view  alto- 
gether unlike  that  of  the  other  Gospels.  The 
tradition  has  passed  through  a  new  mind.  The 
interpretation  of  Jesus  into  the  life  of  the  world 
and  of  the  ages  has  begun.  The  highest  stage  of 
the  development  of  doctrine  in  the  New  Testament, 
and  a  stage  higher  than  any  which  the  church 
attained  again  for  eighty  years,  is  before  us.     But 

1  Eusebius,  H,  E.  iii.  24.  ii. 


WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        6$ 

the  personalities  concerned  in  it  are  veiled  from 
us.  Therewith  is  not  said  that  the  Fourth  Gospel 
is  removed  from  the  Johannine  tradition  which  we 
assume  as  its  basis,  and  which  accounts  for  its 
name,  by  any  wider  outward  interval  than  that 
which  separates  the  First  Gospel  from  a  Matthew 
original,  or  the  Third  Gospel  from  one  of  the  sources 
of  Luke.  Even  the  Second  Gospel,  although  it  is 
a  source  of  the  First  and  Third,  is  itself  also  possi- 
bly at  one  remove  at  least  from  an  earlier  source 
of  its  own.  It  is  the  new  and  profoundly  original 
interpretation  of  material  drawn  from  its  sources, 
in  which  the  Fourth  Gospel  stands  altogether  apart 
from  the  other  three.  There  is  a  story  in  the 
Second  Gospel  which  is  commonly  supposed  to 
allude  to  the  author  of  that  Gospel,  John  Mark.i 
It  is  related  that  at  the  crucifixion  one  disciple, 
wrapped  about  in  a  linen  cloth,  dared  to  draw 
nearer  to  the  divine  mystery  than  did  any  other. 
But  when  pursued,  he  fled  away,  leaving  his  gar- 
ment in  the  hands  of  those  who  would  have  identi- 
fied him.  That  tale  may  be  taken  as  the  eternal 
figure  of  the  problem  which  the  Fourth  Gospel 
presents.  It  seems  safe  to  place  the  production  of 
the  Gospel  not  far  from  the  year  lOO. 

If  we  rightly  understand  Eusebius,  a  translation 
of  the  original  Aramaic  ''  Sayings  "  of  Matthew, 
and  our  Mark,  lay  before  Papias,  the  Bishop  of 
Hierapolis,  when,  in  the  second  decade  of  the  sec- 
ond century,  he  set  about  preserving  all  the  oral 

1  Mark  xiv.  51. 


66        WITNESS    OF   THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

testimony  which  he  could  still  gather  from  aged 
and  privileged  persons  Uke  himself.     He  thought 
with  this  to  supplement  and  to  correct  the  written 
documents.     There  is  something  very  touching  in 
the  figure  of  this  old  man,  with  his  vivid  sense 
of  the  force  with  which  the  personal  testimony  and 
the  oral  tradition  had  come  to  him  in  his  youth. 
He  feels  himself  to  be  the  representative  of  an 
age  which  is  past.     No  one  of  his  contemporaries 
any  longer  thinks  the  oral  tradition  superior  to  the 
written  one.     And  we  are  bound  to  say  that  the 
few  scraps  from  Papias  preserved  to  us  verify  that 
judgment.      Several   scholars   have  attempted,  in 
recent  years,  to  gather  together  all  of  the  frag- 
ments of  the  teaching  of  Jesus  which  appear  to 
have  been  picked  up  by  ecclesiastical  writers  from 
unwritten  sources,  or  at  least  from  sources  other 
than  the  Gospels. ^    The  result  of  the  investigation 
enhances  our  confidence  in  our  Gospels  in  a  high 
degree.     Theoretically,  there  would  seem  to  have 
been  no  reason  why  the  addition  to  our  knowledge 
concerning   Jesus    from    such   sources  should  not 
have  been  worthy  of  consideration.     In  fact,  it  is 
astonishingly  meagre.    Of  the  165  citations  brought 
in  this  way  under  discussion,  103  may  be  dismissed 
as  undoubtedly   apocryphal.^     Of  the  62  remain- 
ing debatable  examples  hardly   10  are  above  the 

1  James  Hardy  Ropes,  Die  Spruche  Jesu,  in  Harnack's  Texte 
unci  Untersuchungen,  Bd.  XIV.,  1896. 

2  Alfred  Resch,  Agrapha,   Texte  und  Untersuchungen,  Bd.  V., 
1889,  and  Bd.  X.,  1893. 


WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        6/ 

level  of  being  considered  inaccurate  quotations. 
And  of  these  ten  there  are  only  two  or  three  which 
can  be  said  to  be,  in  their  content,  an  appreciable 
enrichment  of  our  knowledge  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus,  and  one  of  these  is  from  the  Book  of  the 
Acts.i  So  nearly  do  the  Gospels  that  we  have 
seem  to  have  gathered  all  that,  in  the  time  of  the 
latest  of  them,  was  credibly  known. 

Fragments  of  three  Gospels  have  come  down  to 
us  which  are  undoubtedly  very  ancient.  Two  of 
them  may  perhaps  represent  the  period  of  the 
first  reduction  of  the  tradition  concerning  Jesus 
to  writing.  These  are  the  Gospels  according  to 
the  Hebrews,  according  to  the  Egyptians,  and 
according  to  Peter. 

The  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  is 
mentioned  first  by  Hegesippus  in  a  fragment 
preserved  by  Eusebius,  then  by  Clement  of 
Alexandria,  then  by  Origen,  and  ^  after  that  by 
many  ancient  writers.  The  chief  fragments 
which  have  come  down  to  us  are  preserved  in 
the  writings  of  Jerome.  Jerome  seems  at  times 
to  incline  to  the  opinion  that  he  has  here  in  hand 
a  source,  or  perhaps  the  original,  of  our  canoni- 
cal Matthew.  Other  writers  seem  to  have  con- 
fused this  Gospel  according  to  the  Hebrews  with 
a  later  and  more  elaborate  work,  a  Gospel  much 
in  use  among  the  Ebionites.  But  the  real  Gospel 
according  to  the  Hebrews  would  seem,  without 
doubt,    to   have  sprung   out  of   the  Jewish  com- 

1  Acts  XX.  35. 


6S        WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

munity  in  Palestine,  and  to  have  been  used  among 
the  common  people,  but  not  among  those  dis- 
tinctively identified  with  any  sect.  Perhaps  it 
is  based  upon  that  Aramaic  source  of  our  Mat- 
thew to  which  we  have  referred.  It  seems,  how- 
ever, to  have  altered  this  source  to  the  taste  of 
stricter  Jews,  and  to  have  enriched  it  from  the 
oral  tradition.  At  the  same  time  it  appears  to 
have  preserved  some  original  traits  as  compared 
with  our  synoptic  Gospels. 

Of  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Egyptians  there 
are  fragments  in  Clement  of  Alexandria,  in  Hip- 
poly  tus,  and  in  Epiphanius.  And  the  Gospel  is  men- 
tioned by  very  many  ancient  writers.  There  is  good 
reason  to  suppose  that  it  represents  the  tradition 
of  the  Gospel  current  among  Gentile  Christians  in 
Egypt,  and  that  its  very  name  suggests  the  con- 
trast of  this  tradition  with  that  which  was  brought 
to  the  Jewish  Christian  community  in  Egypt 
from  Palestine.  And  both  these  names  of 
Gospels,  that  according  to  Hebrews  and  that 
according  to  Egyptians,  even  if  given  to  these 
Gospels  by  men  of  a  later  time,  suggest  that 
the  provincial  communities  were  not,  at  the  time 
of  the  currency  of  these  Gospels,  familiar  with 
that  form  of  the  tradition  which  passed  under  the 
names  of  great  Apostles  and  claimed  general  accept- 
ance among  Christian  men.  The  Gospel  according 
to  the  Hebrews  is  ascetic  in  temper  and  speculative 
in  character.  It  may  have  arisen  in  some  one  of 
the  Encratite  sects.  The  SabeUians  seem  to  have 
approved  it. 


WITNESS    OF   THE   EARLIEST   LITERATURE        69 

A  Gospel  according  to  Peter  is  referred  to  by 
Origen  in  his  commentary  upon  Matthew.  It  is 
also  alluded  to  several  times  by  Eusebius.  Until 
the  autumn  of  1892  this  was  the  most  that  we 
knew  of  it.  In  that  year  the  French  archaeologist 
Bouriant  published  a  parchment  found  in  the 
grave  of  a  monk  at  Akhmim  in  Upper  Egypt. 
This  fragment  contained  a  part  of  the  Apocalypse 
of  Peter  to  which  we  referred,  and  also  the  latter 
portion  of  a  Gospel  according  to  Peter.  The  scrap 
begins  in  the  history  of  the  Passion,  at  the  point 
where  Jesus  is  condemned  by  the  priests,  and  ends 
with  the  appearance  of  Jesus  by  the  Sea  of  Galilee 
after  his  resurrection.  The  author  would  seem 
to  have  known  our  synoptic  Gospels.  The  Gospel 
has  the  peculiar  quality,  as  compared  with  our 
canonical  Gospels,  that  in  it  the  author  speaks 
constantly  in  the  first  person,  naming  himself  "I, 
Peter,"  and  saying  **  we  "  when  he  speaks  for  the 
twelve  Apostles.  The  whole  narrative  suggests 
the  docetic  point  of  view,  which  made  the  earthly 
life  of  the  Saviour  but  an  appearance.  This  agrees 
in  very  striking  fashion  with  what  Eusebius  relates 
concerning  Serapion,  Bishop  of  Antioch  from  190  to 
203  A.D.^  On  the  occasion  of  one  of  his  visitations 
to  the  church  in  Rhossus  in  Cilicia,  Serapion  found 
that  community  reading  a  Gospel  according  to  Peter. 
He  permitted  its  use.  The  inference  from  his  letter 
is  that  neither  he  nor  they  deemed  such  use  of  other 
Gospels  in  any  way  remarkable.     But  when,  later, 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  vi.  12. 


70 


WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 


he  read  this  Gospel,  he  wrote  at  once  recalling  his 
permission,  because  he  found  the  book  docetic  and 
heretical.  One  gets  a  glimpse  of  the  way  in  which 
the  fourfold  Gospel  came,  in  the  end,  to  displace  all 
others. 

Sometime  after  the  beginning  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, the  treatment  of  the  Gospel  material  began 
to  assume  all  manner  of  speculative  forms  and  to 
be  moulded  to  every  doctrinal  and  sectarian  pur- 
pose. The  treatment  ran  out,  at  the  end,  into  im- 
aginative constructions  and  pure  romance.  Books 
of  that  first  sort,  handling  the  tradition  with  doc- 
trinal and  sectarian  intent,  and  usually  constituting 
the  secret  literature  of  schismatic  bodies,  got  the 
name  Apocrypha,  which  means  simply  secret  books. 
These  were  of  course  energetically  repudiated  by 
the  rising  catholic  church.  And  they  passed  on 
the  name,  at  least,  to  all  books  rejected  for  what- 
ever cause,  although  some  of  the  books  thus  labelled 
were  never  the  serious  documents  of  any  sect  and 
were  hardly  above  the  level  of  pious  romance. 
There  were  Gospels  according  to  Thomas,  to 
James,  to  Nicodemus,  Gospels  of  the  Infancy, 
Acts  of  Pilate,  and  many  more  things  of  the  sort. 
But  these  need  not  detain  us  here. 

One  sees  that  up  to  the  time  which  we  have  now 
reached,  about  the  year  1 50,  there  were  many  more 
Gospels  than  four,  and  some  of  them  stood  in  high 
favor  with  devoutest  people.  That  the  church, 
however,  in  the  end,  out  of  this  confusion,  came  to 
possess  four  Gospels  of  like  worth  in  the  estimate 


WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        /I 

of  its  adherents,  and  not  simply  one  Gospel,  must 
be  owned  to  be  an  extraordinary  fact.  Analogies 
from  other  religions  might  suggest  the  possession 
of  but  one  book  of  this  sort,  one  biography  of  the 
founder  and  hero,  one  book  to  be  read  in  the  public 
assemblies  and  to  which  all  the  traditions  had  been 
reduced.  The  earliest  Palestinian  churches  appar- 
ently had  but  one  Gospel.  The  Gospel  according 
to  the  Egyptians  we  assume  to  be  the  single  form 
which  the  tradition  took  in  the  Gentile  church  of 
that  land.  The  Syrians  later  even  made,  in  Tatian's 
Diatessaron,  the  four  Gospels  into  one,  and  pre- 
ferred that.  Only  in  the  iifth  century  were  they 
compelled  to  put  the  four  in  its  place.  Of  course, 
we  can  understand  that  the  provincial  tradition, 
according  to  Egyptians,  according  to  Hebrews, 
could  never  make  stand  against  the  might  of  Gos- 
pels bearing  the  great  names  of  John  and  Matthew 
and  the  rest.  But  why  the  church  paused  at  these 
four,  instead  of  going  on  to  their  resolution  into  one 
Gospel,  remains  obscure.  Some  have  thought  of  a 
kind  of  compromise,  as  if  one  Gospel  were  best 
loved  here,  and  another  there,  and  the  only  agree- 
ment possible  was  the  agreement  upon  all.  But 
there  is  no  evidence  to  sustain,  in  any  larger  way, 
the  theory  that  one  of  our  four  Gospels  was  in  exclu- 
sive honor  here  and  another  there.  Rather,  it  ap- 
pears that,  from  the  time  when  men  began  to  know 
our  four  canonical  Gospels  at  all,  they  soon  came 
to  know  and  to  prize  all  of  the  four. 

At   least,  the  first  three,  the  synoptic  Gospels, 


72        WITNESS   OF   THE   EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

often  make  their  appearance  together.  We  may 
assume  that  from  the  time  when  men  began  to 
know  our  four  canonical  Gospels,  all  serious  use 
of  other  Gospels  save  in  remoter  places,  as  in 
the  case  of  Rhossus  just  given,  fell  away.  And 
as  regards  these  four,  even  if  it  be  assumed 
that  the  reduction  of  them  all  to  one  Gospel,  after 
the  manner  of  Tatian's  Diatessaron,  was  the  logic 
of  the  situation,  yet  the  force  which  prevented  that 
reduction  had  been  operative  from  the  beginning. 
That  force  was,  namely,  the  apprehension  of  these 
four  as  in  some  sense  original  witnesses.  What 
takes  place  is  a  kind  of  arrest  in  progress.  It  is 
as  if  the  sense  of  the  unique  sacredness  of  this 
material,  and  the  fear  of  the  loss  or  change  of  the 
least  particle  of  it,  overtook  the  men  with  some 
suddenness.  It  is  as  if,  midway  in  the  process  of 
composition  and  recomposition,  of  the  casting  and 
recasting  of  this  gospel  stuff  so  freely,  as  it  had 
been  going  on  all  these  years,  men  said  to  them- 
selves :  But  let  us  stop  right  here.  We  had  rather 
have  four  Gospels,  deemed  to  go  back  to  witnesses  ; 
we  had  rather  have  four  Gospels,  even  if  they  do 
overlap  one  another  and  present  impossible  prob- 
lems in  the  attempt  to  harmonize  them.  We  had 
rather  have  four  Gospels,  than  one,  which,  if  it 
were  now  made,  would,  after  all,  represent  only  the 
opinions  of  our  own  time  as  to  how  this  unique 
material  is  to  be  combined.  They  stood  still  at  the 
four.  We  can  never  be  sufficiently  grateful  that 
they  did  so,  and  that  no  such  attempt  as  that  of 


WITNESS   OF   THE   EARLIEST    LITERATURE        73 

Tatian  ever  gained  great  currency,  or  took  the 
place  of  the  four  in  any  wider  way. 

Certain  it  is  that  toward  the  end  of  the  second 
century  the  fourfold  Gospel  was  in  supreme  honor 
and  authority  in  Rome,  in  North  Africa,  in  Egypt, 
and  in  Gaul.  Indeed  to  Irenaeus'  mind  —  and  his 
training  carries  us  back  to  Asia  Minor,  and  as  far 
at  least  as  the  year  155  — it  was  as  much  a  part  of 
the  divine  order  of  things  that  there  should  be  four 
Gospels  as  that  there  should  be  four  winds  of 
Heaven  or  four  rivers  of  Paradise.  The  process 
had  begun  which  ended  in  the  elimination  of  all 
Gospels  but  the  four. 

Acts  of  Apostles  need  not  detain  us  long.  The 
one  canonical  book  is  certainly  by  the  author  of  the 
Third  Gospel  and  is  virtually  a  continuation  of  the 
history  which  that  Gospel  had  begun.  One  source 
of  the  Book  of  the  Acts  is  of  extraordinary  vividness 
and  value.  It  is  the  so-called  "  We-section,"  the 
portion  in  which  the  narrator  speaks  always  in  the 
first  person.  It  is  the  document  which  underlies  a 
good  part  of  the  last  half  of  the  narrative.  It  is  the 
story  of  an  eye-witness  and  participant  in  many  of 
the  stirring  scenes  in  the  life  of  Paul.  It  is  almost 
like  the  journal  of  a  companion  of  his  wanderings. 
Whether  this  companion  was  himself  the  author, 
the  physician  Luke,  or  whether  the  author  has 
used  the  narrative  of  this  companion,  cannot  cer- 
tainly be  made  out.  For  the  rest,  we  must  say  that 
while  the  author  has  clearly  had  written  sources, 
yet  many  things  in  the  earlier  part  of  his  history. 


74         WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

that  part  which  centres  about  Jerusalem,  are  diffi- 
cult to  make  out.     Indeed,  for  the  author  himself 
sharpness   of    outline   is   wanting.     Things    have 
faded  out  somewhat  in  the  distance.     The  bitter 
antagonism  revealed    in   Paul's    letters    is    almost 
forgotten.     Just  why  the  book  should  end  so  tanta- 
lizingly  as  it  does,  leaving  Paul  in  his  own  hired 
house  in  Rome,  and  telling  us  nothing  of  the  issue 
of   that  glorious    life,  most  likely  we  shall  never 
know.     It  is  not  possible  to  think,  with  many  of 
the  ancients  and  some  modern  scholars,  that  the 
book  was  written  in  the  year  in  which  the  narrative 
breaks  off,  that  is,  before  the  death  of  Paul.     Cer- 
tainly the  Book  of  the  Acts  was  written  after  the 
Third  Gospel,  and  clearly  that  Gospel  was  written 
after  the  destruction  of  Jerusalem  in  the  year  70. 
On  the  other  hand,  if  the  Book  of  the  Acts  was 
written     soon     after    the    destruction,    it     seems 
strange  that   the    author  should   not    mention  so 
significant  an  event  —  almost  more  strange  than 
that  he  does  not  mention  the  issue  of  the  life  of 
Paul.     But  the  strangest  thing  of  all  is  this,  that 
although  the  author  well  knows  the  point  of  the 
Pauline  preaching,  and  has  given  us  several  ser- 
mons which  he  puts  into  the  mouth  of  Paul,  yet  there 
is  not  a  single  passage  in  any  Pauline  letter  which 
can  be  regarded  as  a  source  for  any  part  of  these 
sermons.     It   cannot  be  directly  proved  that   the 
author  even    possessed  a   single    letter   of    Paul, 
although   it  would   seem   impossible   that  he  did 
not.     When   one  compares  the  use  made  of  the 


WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE        75 

Pauline  letters  by  Clement,  Barnabas,  Ignatius,  and 
Polycarp,  this  fact  is  very  striking.  Even  these 
men  feel  themselves  in  greater  measure  outside  of 
the  personal  influence  of  Paul  than  does  the  author 
of  the  Acts,  and  are  compelled  to  gain  from  his 
letters  the  knowledge  which  they  have  of  Paul. 

Just  why  no  one  has  ever  told  us  much  of  the 
missionary  journeyings  of  the  other  Apostles  is  a 
question  which  we  cannot  answer.  The  fragments 
of  early  deposit  of  tradition  here  are  small.  The 
tendency  to  write  romances  with  the  Apostles  for 
their  heroes  sets  in  later.  The  efforts  to  use  one 
Apostle  and  another  as  stalking-horses  for  doctri- 
nal peculiarities  are  of  such  late  origin,  and  are  such 
palpable  inventions,  that  they  can  hardly  be  said 
to  have  any  relation  to  the  history  of  the  Canon. 
The  romance  of  Paul  and  Thecla,  the  devout 
woman  who  is  described  as  journeying  with  Paul 
on  his  mission,  is,  perhaps,  the  only  one  of  which 
we  need  even  to  give  the  name. 

Eusebius  ^  counted  among  the  books  not  to  be 
accepted,  one. known  as  the  Teaching  of  the  Twelve 
Apostles,  Didache.  There  were  allusions  in  the 
writings  of  the  Fathers  to  this  or  very  similar  titles. 
But  until  the  year  1883  this  was  nearly  all  that  we 
knew.  In  that  year  Bryennios,  Patriarch  of  Con- 
stantinople, published  his  discovery,  in  a  monastery 
on  Mount  Sinai,  of  a  manuscript  which  since  that 
time  has  been  the  subject  of  almost  unending  dis- 
cussion.    Then  it  became  evident  that  many  of  the 

1  Eusebius,  H,  E.  iii.  25.  4. 


76        WITNESS   OF   THE    EARLIEST   LITERATURE 

Fathers  had  extensively  quoted  this  writing.     It  is 
a  sort  of  manual  of  Christian  morals  to  be  used  in 
the  instruction  of  those  looking  forward  to  Chris- 
tian baptism.     In  the  second  part,  it  contains  also 
admonitions  to  maturer  Christians  concerning  the 
rites  of  the  church.     Almost  certainly  the  book  is 
in  part  the  redaction  of  older  material.     Perhaps 
in  part  a  Jewish  manual  is  here  worked  over  by  a 
Christian  hand.     As  we  have  it,  however,  the  work 
seems  to  have  arisen  in  Syria  about  the  year  1 50. 
The  interesting  thing  for  us  is  that  there  is  not  the 
slightest  trace  of  the  existence  of  the  New  Testament 
Canon.     The  authorities  of  the  Christians  are  the 
Old  Testament,  and  the  Gospel,  which  is  spoken  of, 
however,  as  something  written.     The  use  of  the 
singular  number.  Gospel,  is  to  be  noted.     But  our 
four  canonical  Gospels  together  are  often  by  later 
writers  spoken  of  as  constituting  one  Gospel.     And 
besides  these  written  authorities  we  have  the  Apos- 
tles themselves,  as  those  whom  the  Lord  had  commis- 
sioned to  teach.     Apostles,  prophets,  and  teachers 
are   still   the   real   functionaries    of    the   church. 
There  are  more  bishops  than  one  in  a  single  com- 
munity.    There  is  no  set  order  of  worship  such  as 
appears  already  in  Justin.     And  there  is  no  trace 
of  the  rule  of  faith,  and  of  the  movement  which 
issues  in  the  Apostles'  Creed.     Words  of  the  Lord 
are  given  in  almost  every  chapter,  seventeen  times 
in  the  form  of  Matthew,  four  times  in  the  form  of 
Luke.     The  Gospel  according  to  John  seems  also 
to  have  been  known.     Apostolic  letters  appear  to 


WITNESS    OF    THE   EARLIEST    LITERATURE        "JJ 

have  been  known  to  the  author.  But  not  once  is 
material  from  them  cited  as  apostolic  teaching. 

On  the  other  hand,  that  which  is  put  forth  as 
the  tradition  of  apostolic  teaching  in  the  church 
could  never  have  been  put  forth  under  that  name 
if  the  apostolic  letters  had  had  scriptural  authority, 
as  yet,  in  this  part  of  the  church,  or  even  if  they 
had  been  much  read.  That  judging  of  the  spirit 
of  the  prophets  which  Paul  commands,  the  Didache 
forbids.  This  is  surely  a  sign  that  the  authority  of 
these  prophets  was  waning.  But,  as  we  have  seen, 
where  this  sense  of  prophetic  inspiration  of  living 
persons  was  still  present  in  force,  and  these  could 
claim  the  supreme  authority  of  God  and  Christ, 
there  could  be  no  talk  of  the  authority  of  New 
Testament  Scriptures  as  such. 

In  that  sermon  of  some  unknown  preacher  in 
Rome  in  the  middle  of  the  second  century,  which 
has  come  down  to  us  under  the  name  of  the  Second 
Epistle  of  Clement,  the  authorities  of  the  Christian 
are  the  Old  Testament  and  the  Apostles.  But, 
again,  it  is  the  Apostles  as  the  tradition  knows 
them,  the  living  witnesses  to  Christ,  and  not  the 
books  of  the  Apostles,  as  yet,  to  which  the  author 
thus  refers.  It  is  the  will  of  the  Father  which 
Christians  are  to  do,  it  is  the  commandment  of  the 
Lord  which  they  are  to  remember  and  keep.  And 
despite  the  fact  that  these  phrases  sound  so  much 
like  famous  phrases  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  only 
Matthew  and  Luke  are  adduced  in  their  support. 
The  author  has  made  extensive  use  of  an  apocry- 


78        WITNESS    OF    THE    EARLIEST    LITERATURE 

phal  Gospel,  most  likely  that  of  the  Egyptians. 
There  is  almost  nothing  in  this  attractive  little 
homily  which  shows  any  trace  of  the  influence  of 
the  writings  of  Paul. 

We  have  finished  our  task.  We  have  touched 
upon  those  writings  of  the  earliest  Christianity 
which  belong  to  the  types,  and,  roughly  also,  to 
the  times  which  produced  the  New  Testament. 
If  we  have  gained  one  single  clear  impression,  we 
may  be  satisfied.  It  is  this  impression,  that  for 
the  time  of  which  we  speak,  that  is,  until  about  the 
year  165,  the  literature  which  we  know  in  a  closed 
body  or  collection,  and  under  the  definite  appre- 
hension of  it  as  inspired  and  sacred  Scripture,  did 
not  yet  exist  as  a  collection,  and  did  not  exist  under 
that  apprehension.  That  apprehension  existed. 
But  it  was  appHed  only  to  the  Old  Testament. 
The  authorities  of  the  Christian  were  the  Old 
Testament  and  Christ  Jesus  the  Lord.  The  spirit 
of  Christ  was  deemed  to  be  everywhere  abroad  in 
the  hearts  of  Christian  men.  The  Apostles  were 
beginning  to  be  looked  upon  as  the  sole  authorita- 
tive witnesses  to  that  which  Christ  had  said  and 
done.  And  also,  the  Apostles  were  beginning  to 
be  felt  to  exist  as  witnesses  only  in  their  writings. 
But  those  were  the  signs  of  the  new  thing  which 
was  coming.  Those  were  the  traits  of  the  time 
which  was  to  be. 


LECTURE    III 

THE   NEW   TESTAMENT   AT   THE   END 
OF  THE   SECOND   CENTURY 


LECTURE   III 

THE    NEW  TESTAMENT    AT    THE    END 
OF   THE   SECOND    CENTURY 

By  the  middle  of  the  second  century  the  Chris- 
tian movement  had  reached  the  stage  at  which,  as 
a  mode  of  life,  it  must  explain  itself  to  the  civil 
authorities,  and,  as  a  form  of  doctrine,  must  justify 
itself  to  the  mind  of  the  educated  world.  The  men 
who  undertook  one  or  both  of  these  tasks  are 
known  as  the  Apologists.  Up  to  this  time  the 
great  mass  of  the  Christians  had  been  drawn  from 
among  simple  people,  from  the  poor,  and  even  from 
the  ranks  of  the  slaves.  And  even  now  it  is  note- 
worthy that  scarcely  one  of  the  Apologists  was 
born  of  Christian  parents.  These  men  were  for 
the  most  part  pagan  philosophers  and  rhetoricians, 
converted  in  maturity.  They  were  men  able  to 
assert  their  rights  under  the  Roman  Empire.  And 
they  were  impelled  to  explain  their  conduct  to  men 
of  the  class  with  which  they  had  just  parted  com- 
pany. Without  doubt,  the  large  majority  of  the 
Christian  adherents  still  continued  to  be  from  the 
lower  orders  of  the  people.  But  the  work  of 
the  Apologists  makes  plain  that  the  Christians 
themselves  were  rising  to  self -consciousness,  to  self- 
respect  in  their  new  position ;  and  with  these  traits 
G  8i 


82      THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

came  the  impulse  to  self-defence.  No  less  does 
the  work  of  the  Apologists  make  plain  that  the 
world  about  the  Christians  was  beginning  to  dis- 
cover that  Christianity  was  not  to  be  ignored  as 
merely  one  new  oriental  superstition  added  to  the 
many  which  were  then  current  in  the  West.  Nor 
was  it  to  be  regarded  as  merely  one  of  the  many 
contentious  sects  of  Judaism  concerning  which  one 
might  say  with  Pilate,  ''Am  I  a  Jew.?"  or,  like 
Gallic,  might  care  for  none  of  these  things. 

The  Apology,  therefore,  differs  markedly  from 
those  types  of  literature  which  preceded  it,  and 
with  which  we  have  thus  far  dealt.  These  all  had 
been  produced  by  the  same  impulses  which  gave 
shape  to  the  writings  which  afterward  became 
canonical.  The  Apologies,  on  the  other  hand, 
took  not  merely  their  form  but  also  in  good  degree 
their  substance  from  impulses  all  their  own.  The 
Apology  shows  also  a  distinction  from  the  type  of 
literature  introduced  a  generation  later  by  such 
men  as  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian.  To  the  minds  of 
these  men  the  Christian  church  which  they  repre- 
sented had  become  a  great  institution  with  an 
organization  of  its  own,  with  a  growingly  distinct 
form  of  doctrine  to  assert,  and  with  a  sacred  litera- 
ture to  which  to  refer. 

These  discriminations  are  broadly  true,  despite 
the  fact  that  a  few  of  the  men  overlap  this  classi- 
fication. They  transcend  it,  indeed,  in  either 
direction.  Tatian,  for  example,  beside  writing  an 
Apology,  prepared  a  redaction  of   our  four  Gos- 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY      83 

pels,  the  general  use  of  which  redaction  in  the 
Syrian  churches  shows  that  there,  at  any  rate,  for 
two  centuries,  the  canonical  way  of  thinking  of 
the  four  Gospels  did  not  obtain.  And,  on  the 
other  hand,  Origen,  busied  with  the  maturer  de- 
velopment of  theology  in  the  middle  of  the  third 
century,  reaches  back  to  answer  the  aspersions  of 
Celsus,  who  had  written  his  assault  upon  Chris- 
tianity during  the  last  generation  of  the  second  cen- 
tury. The  apologetic  literature  falls,  however, 
mainly,  into  the  period  between  the  years  145 
and  180. 

The  writers  of  this  literature  were  for  the  most 
part  of  the  type  of  training  which  we  usually  asso- 
ciate with  the  name  of  the  Greek  sophists,  whose 
art  and  mode  of  life  had  undergone  a  curious  re- 
vival in  the  Roman  Empire  of  this  time.  They 
were  men  who  themselves  had  found  in  the  Chris- 
tian faith  and  hope  and  love  a  satisfaction  which, 
in  the  speculation  and  the  ceremonies  of  their  time, 
they  had  sought  in  vain.  Their  works  are  cast  in 
a  form  which  shows  either  that  they  were  intended 
to  be  heard,  and  not  read,  or  else,  that  the  authors 
followed  the  fiction  of  the  schools  that  such  works 
should  be  written  as  if  they  were  to  be  heard  rather 
than  read.  With  this  trait  goes,  often,  the  unfor- 
tunate rhetorical  manner  which  the  Apologists 
affect,  and  that  degree  of  unreliability  which 
always  accompanies  the  conscious  striving  after 
eloquence.  The  writers  take  their  departure  from 
the  current  popular   philosophy.     Justin  is  fully 


84      THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

aware  of  this  fact,  in  his  own  case.  Tatian,  on 
the  other  hand,  roundly  abuses  philosophy,  since 
he  has  become  a  Christian,  but  takes  his  departure 
from  it  none  the  less. 

One  of  the  best  loved  forms  of  argument  is  that 
of  the  appeal  to  antiquity.  If  a  religion  is  divine 
it  must  be  ancient;  the  more  ancient,  apparently, 
the  more  divine.  The  reproach  had  obviously 
been  made  against  the  Christians  that  their  reli- 
gion was  but  of  yesterday.  The  attempt  of  the 
Apologists  is,  therefore,  to  prove  that  Christianity, 
through  Judaism,  of  course,  is  much  older  than  the 
Greek  and  Roman  paganism.  The  earliest  expo- 
nents of  paganism,  lawgivers  and  others,  had  but 
borrowed  from  Moses,  and  often  borrowed  very 
badly.  As  against  Judaism,  the  attempt  is  to 
prove  that  the  Christians  alone  really  understood 
Judaism.  This  argument  from  antiquity  had  the 
curious  effect  that  it  threw  the  Old  Testament  into 
the  foreground  in  a  measure  even  greater  than  that 
which  we  have  thus  far  observed.  What  was  new 
and  characteristic,  in  the  teaching  of  Jesus  and  of 
the  Apostles,  was  obscured,  or,  rather,  because  it 
was  so  unfortunate  as  to  be  new,  it  was  treated  as 
if  it  were  of  less  worth.  The  Old  Testament  was 
even  more  than  ever  apprehended  as  a  Christian 
book  of  oracles,  and  this  both  by  those  within  and 
by  those  outside  of  the  Christian  community.  At- 
tention was  withdrawn  from  Christian  writings;  and 
a  movement  to  collect  those  writings  and  to  famil- 
iarize the  public  with  them  was,  in  so  far  as  the 


THE    END    OF    THE    SECOx\D    CENTURY  85 

influence  of  certain  Apologists  was  concerned, 
retarded.  When  Marcion  and  others  Hke  him 
presently  rejected  the  Old  Testament  altogether, 
and  pronounced  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  not 
even  the  same  God  with  the  God  of  Jesus,  this  was, 
in  part,  only  a  natural  reaction  against  the  strange 
overestimate  of  the  Old  Testament  within  the 
Christian  community  and  neglect  of  elements 
which  were  new  and  characteristically  Christian. 
The  foremost  of  the  men  who  attempted  thus 
the  mediation  between  Christianity  and  the  culture 
of  the  pagan  world  was  Justin  the  Martyr.  He 
was  born  in  Palestine,  at  NeapoKs,  the  ancient 
Shechem,  of  heathen  parents,  about  the  year  lOO. 
He  was  converted  probably  about  the  year  133. 
It  would  appear  that  in  Ephesus  he  first  came  into 
sympathetic  contact  with  the  Jewish  community 
and  acquired  his  knowledge  of  rabbinical  teaching. 
In  Rome,  under  Antoninus  Pius,  he  lectured  in 
Greek  in  his  own  auditorium  as  teacher  and  apolo- 
gist for  Christianity.  Acts  touching  his  martyrdom 
assign  his  death  to  the  prefecture  of  Rusticus,  163 
to  167  A.D.,  in  the  city  of  Rome.  Two  Apologies, 
beside  the  Dialogue  with  Trypho,  are  deemed 
genuine.  But  the  Second  Apology,  so  called,  is 
hardly  more  than  a  postscript  to  the  First.  It  con- 
tains but  an  appHcation,  in  a  fresh  instance,  of  the 
principle  set  forth  in  the  First.  It  may  have  been 
handed  in  to  the  Emperor  Antoninus  Pius  along 
with  the  First  Apology.  At  all  events,  the  as- 
sertion   of    Eusebius    that    the    Second    Apology 


86  THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

belongs  to  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius  cannot  be 
true. 

In  this  First  Apology,  written  after  the  year  150, 
Justin  declares  it  to  be  unworthy  of  the  Roman 
state  that  the  Christians  should  be  persecuted  and 
punished  as  if  simply  for  the  bearing  of  that  name. 
One  has  the  sense,  as  he  Hstens,  that  in  Justin  an 
advocate  has  arisen  for  the  dumb  multitudes  who 
have  suffered  silently  thus  far.  He  boldly  defends 
the  Christians  against  the  accusation  of  atheism. 
The  accusers  probably  meant  that  the  Christians 
had  no  images.  He  declares  them  not  guilty  of 
horrible  immoralities  alleged.  Charges  such  as 
were  current  throughout  the  whole  period  of 
the  Apologists,  for  example,  that  of  eating  hu- 
man flesh  and  drinking  blood,  may  have  arisen 
out  of  phrases  used  by  the  Christians  in  connec- 
tion with  the  Eucharist.  But  they  were  taken  in 
dreadful  literalness  by  the  pagan  multitude.  One 
recalls  the  tragic  misunderstandings  between  Jews 
and  Christians  in  the  Middle  Age.  Justin  denies 
that  the  Christians  are  in  antagonism  to  the  State. 
The  notion  of  that  antagonism  may  have  origi- 
nated in  the  withdrawal  of  the  Christians  from 
the  pubHc  service,  or,  less  justifiably,  from  their 
refusal  to  do  homage  to  the  image  of  the  em- 
peror. Justin  declares,  on  the  contrary,  that  the 
Christians  are  most  valuable  citizens  because  of 
their  pure  moral  Hfe  and  charity.  Over  against 
these,  he  satirizes  bitterly  the  doctrines  of  vulgar 
paganism,    and    points   to   the   corruption  of   the 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY      8/ 

heathen  Hfe.  He  describes  the  worship  of  the 
Christians  in  their  conventicles,  to  allay  the  jeal- 
ousy of  the  state  against  all  secret  assemblages 
which  might  become  the  hotbeds  of  political  in- 
trigue.^  That  jealous  watchfulness  spared  only  the 
mutual  benefit  and  burial  societies  among  the  sim- 
ple people.  And  in  truth  the  Christian  church 
existed,  through  a  certain  period,  under  the  appre- 
hension, on  the  part  of  the  authorities,  that  its 
purposes  were  those  of  such  a  guild.  We  have 
thus  touched  in  this  place  upon  certain  points 
which  explain  the  whole  apologetic  literature. 

In  the  Dialogue  with  Trypho,  written  apparently 
between  155  and  160  a.d.,  there  is  a  touching 
account  of  Justin's  own  conversion,  which  oc- 
curred as  he  wandered  about  the  world  in  the 
pursuit  of  truth.  Justin  never  laid  aside  the  gar- 
ment or  the  mode  of  Hfe  of  the  wandering  philoso- 
pher. The  defence  of  Judaism  in  the  Dialogue  is 
feeble.  There  may  have  been  an  actual  Rabbi 
Tarphon;  but  one  has  the  feeling  that  Justin's 
Trypho  is  a  man  of  stravv^  Justin's  argument  is,  in 
a  general  way,  that  of  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews, 
only  by  no  means  so  well  conducted. 

But  everywhere  in  Justin  the  great  weight  of 
argument  is  on  the  fulfilment  of  prophecy.  Jesus 
is  to  Justin  what  he  is  because  he  fulfils  the 
Prophets.  The  Old  Testament  is  honored  as  a 
book  of  divine  oracles.  Opinions  concerning  Jesus' 
person  and  work  are  always  sustained  with  proof 

1  Justin,  First  Apology^  65  and  67. 


88      THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

texts  from  these  oracles.  Rarely  indeed  are 
such  opinions  made  to  rest  upon  historical  evi- 
dence taken  from  the  works  which  are  to  be- 
come New  Testament.  The  Prophets  are  cited 
verbally.  The  fulfilment  of  the  prophecies,  on  the 
other  hand,  is  related  in  words  from  the  oral  tradi- 
tion, from  extra-canonical  writings,  and  from  our 
Gospels,  quite  at  random,  and  with  no  emphasis 
upon  the  wording.  Never  are  any  writings  except 
those  of  the  Old  Testament  spoken  of  as  inspired. 
Only  Old  Testament  citations  have  attached  to 
them  the  phrase,  ''Thus  saith  the  Holy  Spirit." 
Old  Testament  quotations  have  the  names  of 
books  or  authors'  names  appended.  This  latter 
honor  is  bestowed  upon  the  Apocalypse  alone  of 
all  the  New  Testament  books.  And  this  is  as- 
suredly because  the  book  was  thought  of  as  the 
continuation  of  the  Old  Testament  prophecy. 

Of  interest,  on  the  other  hand,  is  Justin's  declara- 
tion, in  the  course  of  his  account  of  the  Christian 
services,  that  apostolic  memorials  concerning  Jesus 
were  publicly  read  in  the  conventicles  every  Lord's 
day  in  connection  with  the  reading  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament.^ But  Justin  does  not  himself  apprehend  this 
as  the  putting  of  new  Scriptures  beside  the  old. 
It  is  simply  the  putting  of  the  facts  of  the  fulfil- 
ment of  prophecy  alongside  of  the  words  of  the 
prophecy  which  was  to  be  fulfilled.  In  the  one 
case  the  emphasis  is  all  upon  the  facts,  however  the 
statement  of  them  may  be  worded.     In  the  other 

1  Justin,  Firsi  Apology,  67. 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY      89 

case  the  emphasis  is  all  upon  the  sacred  words. 
Only  the  words  of  the  Lord,  and  not  the  writings 
which  contain  them,  have  authority  like  that  of  the 
Old  Testament.  Fulfilment  of  prophecy  is  the  crite- 
rion of  truth  of  the  statements  in  the  Gospel.  The 
historic  test  of  the  truth  of  such  statements  in  them- 
selves is  never  applied.  The  grace  and  truth  which 
were  in  Jesus  Christ  himself,  appealing  to  the 
hearts  of  all  men,  constitute  no  argument.  It  is 
this  grace  and  truth,  as  forecast  in  concrete  manner 
by  the  inspired  men  of  the  ancient  covenant,  which 
alone  have  weight. 

But,  after  all,  for  Justin  these  authoritative  words 
of  Jesus  exist  only  in  written  documents.  They  are 
no  longer  a  living  voice  as  they  had  been  for  Papias. 
The  word  Evangelium,  the  Gospel,  describes  this 
whole  mass  of  tradition  concerning  Jesus  as  the 
Christians  knew  it.  Even  the  Jew  Trypho  uses  the 
expression,  "in  the  Gospel."  On  the  other  hand, 
toward  the  outside  world  this  tradition  is  called 
the  "  apostolic  reminiscences."  But  in  this  fixed 
magnitude,  the  Gospel,  is  included,  beyond  ques- 
tion, the  Gospel  according  to  Hebrews,  and  perhaps 
also  those  according  to  James  and  to  Thomas.  The 
Gospel  according  to  John,  although  known  to  Justin, 
does  not  appeal  to  him.  Everything  outside  of  the 
Gospels  is  in  the  background.  Letters  of  Paul  — 
Romans,  and  Galatians,  at  any  rate  —  are  known  to 
the  Apologist.  But  the  impulse  of  PauUnism  is 
hardly  felt  at  all.  Antipathy  to  Paul  is  indeed 
everywhere  found.      Yet  the   erroneous  doctrine 


90      THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

against  which  Justin  argues  is  clearly  not  that 
of  Paul. 

On  the  whole,  we  may  say  that  although  Justin 
knows  many  of  the  books  of  the  later  Canon,  yet 
of  a  Canon  of  New  Testament  Scriptures,  inspired 
writing  in  the  sense  of  the  Old  Testament,  there  is 
at  most  but  a  bare  beginning.  That  beginning 
may  perhaps  be  discerned  in  the  fact  that  under 
the  phrase  "our  writings,"  Justin  includes  Gospels 
as  well  as  the  Old  Testament.^  With  passages  from 
the  Gospels,  moreover,  he  uses  the  phrase,  "  It  is 
written,"  which  men  before  Justin  had  used  only  of 
the  Old  Testament. 

Tatian,  according  to  Clement  of  Alexandria  and 
Epiphanius,  was  a  Syrian.  A  phrase  of  his  own 
bears  the  possible  interpretation  that  the  place  of 
his  birth  was  in  Assyria,  that  is,  to  the  eastward  of 
the  Tigris  River.  He  was  of  Greek  education 
and  had  already  made  a  name  as  a  rhetorician 
when  he  was  converted  to  Christianity  in  Rome 
before  the  year  152.  He  was  a  pupil  of  Justin 
until  the  death  of  the  latter.  Probably  about  the 
year  172  he  broke  with  the  Roman  church,  and 
went  over  to  the  ascetic  sect  of  the  Encratites  and 
maintained  a  doctrinal  position  which  was  deemed 
heretical.  He  returned  to  the  Orient ;  but  the  place 
and  time  of  his  death  are  not  known.  His  Apology 
addressed  "To  the  Greeks"  would  seem  to  have 
been  written  some  time  after  his  conversion  and  in 
justification,  to  former  associates,  of  that  step.    It 

1  Justin,  First  Apology ,  28. 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY      9I 

contains  a  bitter  and  sometimes  unjust  critique 
of  current  Hellenic  morals  and  religion,  and,  as 
well,  of  philosophy  and  art.  It  is  the  work  of  a 
man  of  information  rather  than  of  learning.  But 
one  has  the  feeling  always  that  we  have  here  to  do 
with  a  man  of  character.  Passages  from  Paul  and 
John  are  touched  upon.  The  writings  of  Justin 
have  been  used. 

But  much  more  interesting  to  us  than  Tatian's 
Oratio,  is  his  Diatessaron,  or  Harmony  of  the 
Gospels.  We  cannot  be  sure  of  the  date  of  this 
endeavor,  but  it  was  certainly  after  the  year  172, 
that  is,  after  Tatian's  departure  from  Rome  for  the 
East.  Eusebius  says  that  it  belonged  to  the  time 
when  he  served  as  the  head  of  an  Encratite  com- 
munity. The  Diatessaron  may  have  been  written 
for  a  Syrian  church.  On  the  whole,  it  is  likely 
that  the  original  was  in  Greek,  that  is,  that  the 
harmony  was  made  from  our  Greek  Gospels  and 
then  translated  into  Syriac.  The  kind  of  piecing 
together  of  texts  from  different  sources  without 
much  grammatical  reconstruction,  which  is  here 
involved,  would,  indeed,  be  easier  in  Syriac  than  in 
a  language  so  highly  articulated  as  the  Greek.  But 
the  Latin  rendering,  associated  with  the  name  of 
Victor  of  Capua,  bears  evidence  of  having  been 
made  from  a  Greek  text,  rather  than  from  the 
Syriac.  No  Greek  text  of  the  Diatessaron  is  pre- 
served to  us.  Ancient  Armenian  versions  show 
that  it  was  widely  used.  There  is  also  an  Arabic 
rendering  from  the  Syriac. 


92      THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

Tatian's  idea  was  to  do  away  with  the  repetitions 
and  divergences  which  our  four  Gospels  present, 
leaving  out  what  could  not  be  brought  within  the 
unity  of  plan.     He  achieves  thus  something  Hke 
a  running  biography.     The  genealogies  of  Jesus 
have  been  omitted.     The  text  begins  with  the  first 
verse  of  the  Fourth  Gospel.     But  then  follow  the 
two  accounts  of  the  birth,  first  that  in  Luke  and 
then,  after  it,  that  in  Matthew.     The  conflict  be- 
tween the  two  narratives  by  no  means  disappears. 
Tatian's  faithfulness  to  his  sources,  after  all,  sets  a 
limit  to  the  thoroughness  of   his  proceeding.     It 
has  been  said  that  the  disposition  of   material  is 
that   of   the   Fourth   Gospel.     Rather,  it  appears 
that  the  scheme  is  that  of  Matthew,  and  that  the 
author  then  brings  in  the  material  from  the  Fourth 
Gospel  as  best  he  can.     Tatian  uses  great  freedom 
in  the  accomplishment  of  his  purpose,  at  least  in 
so  far  as  relates  to  that  which  he  omits.     But  in 
that  which   he   retains   and  rearranges  he  keeps 
close  to  the  letter  of  the  texts.     It  has  been  said 
that  the  word  diatessaron  is  a  musical  technical 
term   for  accord,  or  harmony,  and  that  the  term 
does  not  itself  imply  that  only  the  four  canonical 
Gospels  were  employed.     But  there  is  no  evidence 
that  material  other  than  that  drawn  from  the  four 
Gospels  was  used.     It  is  clear,  therefore,  that  the 
four  Gospels  held  a  unique  position   in   Tatian's 
mind,  and  very  likely  also  in  the  minds  of  those 
for  whom  he  worked.     But  the  attempt,  with  such 
freedom,  to  made  one  narrative  out  of  the  four, 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY      93 

together  with  the  fact  that  this  narrative  was  long 
pubUcly  used  in  at  least  one  national  church,  shows 
that  the  full  canonical  sense  about  the  four  did  not 
there  as  yet  obtain.  Eusebius  says  that  in  his 
time,  that  is,  before  the  year  340,  the  book  was 
used  in  Syrian  churches  as  the  sole  book  of  the 
Gospels.  In  the  second  half  of  the  fourth  century 
the  first  vigorous  efforts  were  made  to  remove  the 
Diatessaron  from  the  churches  and  to  put  the  four 
Gospels  in  its  place.  Ephraem  Syrus  wrote,  before 
the  year  378,  a  commentary  on  the  Diatessaron, 
although  he  was  quite  aware  of  the  controversy 
concerning  it.  Theodoret,  Bishop  of  Cyrrhus,  about 
450  A.D.,  removed  two  hundred  copies  of  it  from 
the  churches  of  his  diocese  and  caused  them  to  be 
burned. 

Such  a  procedure  as  this  which  we  have  de- 
scribed, on  the  part  of  Tatian,  was,  in  its  essence, 
an  interpretation.  The  judgment  that  two  sec- 
tions of  the  narrative  are  parallel,  and  that  one 
of  them  may  therefore  be  omitted,  is  a  private 
judgment.  The  arrangement  of  chronology  and 
the  adjustment  of  localities  so  as  to  make  a 
running  story — these  also  express  judgments  of 
the  writer.  Moreover,  the  thing  could  hardly  be 
achieved  without  the  insertion,  at  one  point  and 
another,  of  small  scraps,  at  any  rate,  of  which 
we  may  assume  that  Tatian  was  himself  the  au- 
thor. All  this  constitutes  the  subjective  element 
which  appears  in  any  Life  of  Christ,  although 
that  Life  may  be  written  in   the  best   of   faith. 


94      THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

Although  ecclesiastical  writers  denounced  Tatian 
as  a  heretic,  and  although  his  services  as  an  Apolo- 
gist were  almost  forgotten  in  the  aversion  to  him 
as  a  Gnostic,  no  one  ever  asserted  that  the  Diatessa- 
ron  was  an  interpretation  of  the  Gospels  contrived 
for  the  sustaining  of  his  heresy.  This  accusation 
would  have  lain  very  near  at  hand  had  there  been 
ground  for  it.  That  was  a  procedure  in  which 
many  Gnostics  had  indulged.  The  work  seems, 
on  the  contrary,  to  have  been  done  in  the  interest 
merely  of  simplicity  in  instruction.  To  Tatian, 
and  to  some  others  in  his  time,  the  divine  thing  in 
the  Gospel  was  still  simply  the  tradition  concerning 
Jesus.  The  incomparable  worth  was  in  the  sub- 
stance and  not  in  the  words,  as  yet.  We  must  in 
fairness  say  that  only  to  some  men,  and  only  in 
certain  quarters,  was  this  still,  in  Tatian's  time,  the 
case.  In  certain  other  quarters,  even  then,  such 
an  attempt  as  that  of  the  Diatessaron  would  have 
found  no  favor.  We  may  be  grateful  that  neither 
the  work  of  Tatian  nor  any  similar  work  pre- 
vailed. Had  this  really  happened  in  wide  measure, 
we  might  have  lost  the  four  Gospels.  We  should 
thus  have  been  committed  to  what  was,  after  all, 
only  an  interpretation  of  the  Gospels,  a  construc- 
tion of  them  by  a  later  hand  and  in  the  light  of  a 
new  time.^ 

Upon  the  witness  of  the  minor  Apologists  we 
can  but  touch.     Aristides,  whom  we  now  know  to 

1  See  Zahn,  Geschichte  des  Neutestamentlichen  Kations,  i.  387  f. 
and  ii.  530. 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY      95 

have  written  under  Antoninus,  and  not  under 
Hadrian,  will  have  none  of  the  praise  of  Judaism 
which  is  so  constant  in  Justin.  The  character  of 
the  Old  Testament  as  revelation  is  even  denied. 
Of  the  arguments  from  antiquity  and  from  prophecy 
no  use  is  made.  Tobit,  an  apocryphal  book,  is  the 
only  Old  Testament  work  which  is  cited.  But  the 
synoptic  tradition  also  is  scarcely  alluded  to.  It  is 
material  from  Paul,  and  perhaps  also  from  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  which  the  author  mainly  uses,  and 
which  he  describes  as  gospel  writing. 

Melito  of  Sardis,  in  the  time  of  the  Roman 
Bishop  Soter,  i66  a.d.,  seems  to  have  been  a  man 
of  great  influence  in  Asia  Minor.  He  addressed 
an  Apology  to  Marcus  Aurelius  of  which  frag- 
ments only  are  preserved  to  us  in  Eusebius.  His 
attempt  was  to  show  the  blessing  which  Christian- 
ity had  brought  to  the  Roman  Empire,  and  to  move 
the  Emperor,  whose  interest  in  the  good  he  recog- 
nizes, to  view  the  Christians  with  favor.  His 
Eclogae  was  an  interpretation  of  certain  passages 
"  out  of  the  Law  and  the  Prophets  touching  the 
Saviour  and  our  whole  faith."  ^  In  this  work  he 
enumerates  the  Old  Testament  books,  and  calls 
them  explicitly  by  the  name,  the  books  of  the 
ancient  covenant.  He  is  the  first  Christian  who 
directly  uses  that  whole  phrase.  It  would  seem 
as  if  the  conception  of  a  body  of  literature  of  the 
new  covenant  which  he  might  enumerate  lay  close 
at  hand  for  him.     But  he  does  not  say  so  much  as 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  iv.  26.  13. 


96      THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

that.  And  the  only  New  Testament  book  which 
we  know  that  he  commented  upon  was  the  Apoca- 
lypse.    He  was  himself  a  prophet. 

Athenagoras  addressed  an  Apology  to  Marcus 
AureUus  and  Commodus,  in  the  years,  therefore, 
between  176  and  180,  defending  the  Christians 
against  the  accusation  of  immorality  and  pointing 
out  the  injustice  of  the  attitude  of  the  government 
toward  the  Christians,  which  was  different  from 
that  which  it  observed  toward  any  others  of  its 
citizens.  He  wrote  also  in  the  spirit  of  the  Platonic 
philosophy  a  work  on  the  resurrection,  in  which 
he  quoted  words  of  Paul  from  the  fifteenth  chapter 
of  the  First  Corinthians  precisely  as  he  had  cited 
certain  words  of  the  Prophets.  But  he  never  calls 
the  authors  of  Epistles  "bearers  of  the  Spirit,"  like 
the  Prophets.  He  cites  the  Gospels  without  name 
of  book  or  author,  simply  with  the  phrase,  "  It 
says,"  or  "  He  says."  Here  is  the  old  point  of 
view  of  the  authoritative  word  of  the  Master. 

Theophilus,  Bishop  of  Antioch,  writing  before 
the  year  190,  is  the  first  to  cite  a  Gospel  under  the 
name  of  its  author  and  in  such  a  manner  as  to  lay 
the  weight  upon  the  personal  testimony  of  the 
author.^  It  is  the  testimony  of  the  Apostle  John 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel  to  the  matter  involved  in  the 
paschal  controversy.  And  he  first  speaks  of  the 
authors  of  the  Gospels  as  also  bearers  of  the  divine 
Spirit,  precisely  as  the  authors  of  the  Old  Testa- 

1  Aa  Autolycunty  ii.  22.  See  Holtzmann,  Einleitung  in  d. 
N.  T.,  3  Aufl.  1892,  p.  109. 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     97 

ment  had  been  the  bearers  of  that  Spirit.     Strictly 
speaking,  it  is   still   the  authors  rather  than  the 
books  of  whom  this  assertion  is  made.     But  it  is  a 
small  step  for  him  presently  to  use,  concerning  the 
Fourth  Gospel,  the  word  "  holy  writing  "  which  he 
has  often  used  of  prophetical  books.     And  in  one 
place  he  cites  Isaiah,  Matthew,  and  the  Epistle  to 
the  Romans  all  in  one  sentence,  with  the  phrase 
"the  divine  word  commands."     He  quotes  Paul 
more  frequently  than  does  any  other  of  the  Apolo- 
gists.    In  this  he  stands  more  nearly  with  Igna- 
tius  and   Polycarp.      For    him    the    letters   have 
almost  reached  the  same  apprehension  which  be- 
fore had  obtained  for  Gospels  and  Prophets  only. 
In  the  Acts  of  the  Martyrs  of  SciU  in  Numidia 
of   the   17th   of  July,    180  a.d.,  a  North  African 
Christian   is  related  to  have   been  asked  by  the 
proconsul,  "  What  do  you  keep  in  your  strong  box 
there  ?  "    He  replied,  "  Our  holy  books,  and  besides, 
the  letters  of  the  Apostle  Paul."  i     That  Gospels  as 
well  as  the  Old  Testament  are  here  meant  under 
the  phrase  "our  holy  books"  we  may  certainly 
assume.     The  Pauline  material  is  not  yet  quite  on 
the  same  footing  with  these.     Nevertheless  it  was 
preserved  in  the  churches. 

Allusion  has  been  made  to  the  fact  that  Origen 
in  his  time  answered  the  great  attack  upon  Chris- 
tianity which  the  philosopher  Celsus  had  made 
about    175    A.D.,    under    the    title   of   The   True 

1  J.  Armitage  Robinson,   Tex/s  and  Studies,   i.   2,  Cambridge, 
1891,  p.  113. 
H 


98     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

Word.  The  work  itself  has  been  lost,  as  have  so 
many  others  of  the  writings  of  the  early  opponents 
of  Christianity.  But  it  was  answered  in  such  detail, 
that  no  small  part  of  it  has  been  reconstructed 
out  of  the  argument  of  Origen.  We  gather  that 
it  was  the  most  formidable  literary  attack  which 
Christianity  had  suffered  until  Origen's  time.  In 
some  sense  it  was  the  embodied  answer  of  the 
ancient  world  to  Christianity.  Celsus  was  espe- 
cially bitter  against  the  Christians  because,  follow- 
ing their  superstition,  they  are  withdrawn  from  the 
service  of  the  state  in  the  dark  time  which  he  sees 
coming  on.  After  exhausting  the  resources  of  his 
scorn,  he  yet  ends  with  an  exhortation  which  has 
some  pathos  in  it,  that  the  Christians  shall  yet 
return  to  reason  and  join  hands  with  all  good  men 
against  the  evils  which  threaten  to  overwhelm  all. 
Celsus'  information  concerning  Christianity  is  gath- 
ered from  oral  testimony,  but  partly  also  from 
Christian  writings  which  he  has  read.  He  seems  to 
have  read  everything  of  which  he  could  hear.  He 
declares  that  the  Christians  had  four  times  and 
even  oftener  rewritten  and  changed  the  form  of 
their  narrative  concerning  Jesus. ^  But  from  the 
four  Gospels  he  does  not  distinguish  apocryphal 
material.  The  gnostic  Hterature  is  for  him  as 
truly  Christian  literature  as  the  rest.  There  is 
for  him  no  official  literature  of  the  church  to  which 
he  can  hold  himself,  that  is,  no  Canon  of  the  New 

1  Contra   Celstim,  ii.  27.     See  Holtzmann,  Einleitung^  3  Aufl., 
1892,  p.  III. 


THE    ExND    OF    THE    SECOND    CENTURY  99 

Testament  beside  the  Old.    And  yet,  in  large  part, 
his  citations  are  drawn  from  the  synoptic  Gospels. 
In  speaking  of  the  exaggeration  of  the  worth  of 
the    Old  Testament  on  the  part  of   some  of   the 
Apologists,    we   intimated   that  it  was   a   natural 
reaction  against  that    exaggeration,  and   but   the 
continuation  of   certain  anti-Jewish  tendencies  in 
Christianity  itself,   which    came  to  its  expression 
when  certain  other  men  of  this  very  time  rejected 
the  Old  Testament  altogether.     And  if  the  over- 
emphasis upon  the  Old  Testament  retarded  for  a 
moment  the  growth  of  a  Canon  of  New  Testament 
writings,  yet,  on  the  other  hand,  inevitably,  with 
the  rejection  of  the  Old  Testament,  the  collection 
of    New    Testament   writings   and   the  appeal  to 
these  as  alone  authoritative  became  natural  and 
necessary.     We  may  be  sure  that  a  Canon  of  the 
New  Testament  would   have  arisen  in  the  rising 
catholic    church,  quite   apart   from   the   influence 
of  the  heretical  sects.     But  it  is  interesting  to  note 
that  within  those  sects  a  movement  in  the  direction 
of  the  formation  of  a  Canon  was  going  on,  which 
was  the  direct  parallel  of  the  movement  in  the  body 
of  the  church  itself.    And  indeed,  in  some  respects, 
this  heretical  action  anticipated  the  action  of  the 
church  itself.     If  one  had  no  Old  Testament,  then, 
the  more,  must  one  have  a  collection  of  authorita- 
tive Christian  writings.     The  time  was  past  when 
the   movement   could   get  on    altogether   without 
documents.     And  if  one  allowed  himself  to  differ 
in  capital  matters  with  the  leaders  of  the  church, 


100    THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

then,  the  more,  must  one  have  apostolic  documents 
wherewith  to  sustain  those  differing  opinions.  The 
leaders  of  the  heretical  sects  made  instant  and 
consequent  use  of  the  principle  with  which  the 
leaders  of  the  great  body  of  the  church  operated 
only  timidly  at  first.  In  some  degree,  the  shaping 
of  the  Canon  within  the  church  became  necessary 
in  order  to  refute  the  claims  which  the  heretics 
were  already  making  concerning  New  Testament 
Scriptures. 

The  gnostic  leaders  all  sought  to  give  sanction  to 
their  peculiar  tenets  through  the  fiction  that  Jesus 
had  committed  certain  more  intimate  truths  to  cer- 
tain chosen  ones  only  of  his  Apostles.  These  truths 
were  then  handed  down  in  a  secret  tradition  differ- 
ent from  that  common  in  the  body  of  the  church. 
These  truths  might  pertain  to  phases  of  life  and 
doctrine  which  were  not  for  every  man  to  know  or 
strive  to  follow,  but  which  concerned  only  those 
Christians  who  cared  for  this  kind  of  illumination. 
In  earlier  times  neither  the  man  within  the  church 
nor  the  man  outside  of  it,  would  have  had  need  thus 
to  trace  back  his  new  ideas  through  supposed 
secret  tradition  to  the  Apostles.  He  would  simply 
have  said  that  he  himself  had  a  revelation.  But 
the  time  of  such  spontaneity,  or,  rather,  of  any 
general  credence  in  such  spontaneity,  was  past. 
The  notion  of  two  ideals  of  wisdom,  the  notion  of 
salvation  by  wisdom  at  all,  as  distinguished  from 
salvation  by  character,  was  as  far  as  possible  from 
anything  which  Jesus  ever  taught.     But  it  was  a 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY    lOI 

notion  widespread  in  the  Hellenic  world.  The 
church  did  at  this  time  nobly  declare  that  there  had 
been  no  such  secret  tradition,  that  the  Gospel  was 
for  all,  and  the  kingdom  of  Heaven  was  open  to  all 
believers.  But  the  later  ecclesiastical  notion  of  the 
priest,  as  the  sole  rightful  interpreter  of  the  Gos- 
pel, is  only  this  same  gnostic  idea  to  which  the 
heretical  leaders  had  sprung  in  an  instant,  but  at 
which  the  great  body  of  the  church  was  slow  to 
arrive,  and  of  which  it  has  been  still  more  slow 
to  get  rid.  It  was  a  Gnostic,  Marcion,  to  whom  is 
ascribed  the  first  collection  of  New  Testament 
writings  under  the  apprehension  of  them  as  his 
sole  authoritative  documents  for  reference.  And 
Marcion's  reference  to  them  had  for  its  main  pur- 
pose the  sustaining  of  such  theories  as  these  which 
I  have  just  described. 

Marcion  was  a  Pontian,  born  in  Sinope  on  the 
Black  Sea,  a  ship-owner,  and  a  man  of  means.^ 
He  seems  to  have  come  to  Rome  about  the  year 
140  and  to  have  been  a  member  of  the  Roman 
Christian  community.  The  account  in  Hippolytus 
of  the  sins  of  his  youth  is  to  be  received  with  some 
hesitancy.  These  things  were  easily  alleged  after 
a  man  became  a  heretic.  No  one  mentioned  them 
at  the  time  of  his  reception  into  the  Roman  com- 
munity. Already  in  the  time  of  Justin's  First 
Apology  he  was  deemed  a  dangerous  heretic. 
He  was  the  head  of  a  sort  of  school,  which,  after 

1  See  the  article,  Marcion,  by  Gustav  Kriiger,  in  Herzog,  Real- 
Encyklop'ddie,  3  Aufl.,  1903,  xii.  p.  266. 


102     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

his  breach  with  the  Roman  community,  became 
the  nucleus  of  the  Marcionite  church.  TertulHan 
and  Epiphanius  refuted  his  writings,  and  much 
that  we  know  concerning  Marcion  must  be  gath- 
ered out  of  the  argument  of  his  enemies.  There 
seems,  however,  to  be  no  doubt  that  he  attempted 
a  thoroughgoing  treatment  of  the  Christian  tra- 
dition in  the  light  of  theories  which  he  had 
accepted,  and  with  the  suppression  or  alteration  of 
those  documents  which  did  not  accord  with  his 
theories.  For  his  gospel  he  took  the  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  Luke.  He  removed  from  it,  or  altered 
in  it,  all  that  bore  upon  the  connection  of  Chris- 
tianity with  Judaism,  or,  again,  upon  the  reality  of 
the  human  life  of  Jesus.  The  God  of  the  Old  Tes- 
tament was  not  the  same  God  with  the  God  of  the 
New.  If  the  Christian  faith  were  rightly  under- 
stood, there  could  be  nothing  but  contradiction 
between  it  and  the  Old  Testament.  The  second 
part  of  Marcion's  collection  was  made  up  of  the 
Pauline  Letters,  except  the  Pastorals.  But  these 
letters  were  also  in  good  degree  rewritten,  and 
filled  with  glosses  interpreting  them  in  the  Mar- 
cionite sense.  The  revelation  of  God  which  came 
to  Jesus  was  at  once  corrupted  by  the  Jewish  ele- 
ment in  the  Christian  church.  Paul  was  the  only 
one  who  had  ever  really  understood  his  Master. 
But  even  his  letters  had  been  interpolated  and 
falsified  by  Judaizers.  Marcion  was  the  only  one 
who  had  ever  really  understood  Paul.  Marcion's 
opponents  accused  him,  not  without  good  ground, 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     IO3 

of  interpolating  and  falsifying  apostolic  docu- 
ments. He  held  that  it  was  at  his  hands  that  these 
documents  were  reduced  to  their  true  compass 
and  restored  to  their  purity.  It  is  a  singular  frame 
of  mind  in  which  a  man  can  allow  himself  such 
arbitrary  procedure  with  documents,  and  then  de- 
mand of  himself  and  of  others  such  absolute  faith 
in  the  documents  which  he  has  thus  emended. 
But  this  strict  appeal  of  the  Marcionites  to 
certain  apostolic  documents  as  against  others  is 
not  without  its  relation  to  the  very  process  by 
which  the  church,  a  little  later,  set  up  what  it  took 
to  be  apostolic  writings  against  all  other  writings 
whatsoever. 

The  conflict  was  unceasing,  from  the  time  of 
Justin  onward,  with  the  gnostic  movement.  The 
strife  was  with  systems  of  thought  which  were 
indefinitely  more  erratic  than  was  this  of  Marcion, 
and  of  far  less  moral  earnestness  as  well.  Marcion 
was  indeed  misled  by  his  fanatical  antagonism  to 
everything  Jewish,  and  no  one  could  defend  his 
procedure  with  the  apostolic  writings.  At  the 
same  time  it  appears  that  though  he  was  a  man 
of  narrow  nature  and  of  mediocre  mind,  he  was 
yet  intensely  concerned  with  the  ethical  content 
of  these  documents  and  their  meaning  for  men's 
lives.  It  was  not  that  he,  in  mere  speculative 
interest,  wrested  the  documents  to  sustain  fantastic 
theories  of  the  universe,  as  so  many  others  of  the 
Gnostics  did.  The  church  soon  found  itself  com- 
pelled to  bring  into  some  sort  of  catalogue  those 


104     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

writings  of  apostolic  men  which  were  to  be  read  in 
the  catholic  churches.  In  the  fixed  texts  of  these 
books  the  church  came  to  seek  the  basis  of  its 
theological  development,  as  against  the  vagaries  of 
gnostic  doctrine  and  the  flood  of  apocryphal  docu- 
ments and  of  separatist  interpretations.  In  the 
struggle  with  Gnosticism  the  Canon  was  made.  No 
man,  after  the  end  of  the  second  century,  ever  seri- 
ously attempted  to  put  forth  new  documents  as 
apostolic  and  authoritative,  or  to  emend  old  ones 
in  the  way  that  Marcion  had  done.  The  body  of 
that  which  Christians  would  admit  to  be  Scripture 
was  substantially  made  up.  And  this  body  of 
literature  became  a  universal  inheritance.  It  was 
the  inheritance  of  the  orthodox  and  of  the  heretical 
sects  alike.  No  man  might  part  with  that  inherit- 
ance altogether  and  still  claim  to  be  a  Christian. 
However  widely  men  might  differ,  henceforth,  as 
to  the  interpretation  of  this  body  of  Scripture,  it 
was  the  same  body  of  Scripture  which  they  all 
henceforth  claimed  to  interpret. 

There  was  indeed  one  moment  of  reaction  be- 
fore the  church  definitively  parted  with  that  idea 
of  immediate  and  general  inspiration  of  the  Holy 
Ghost  which  it  had  cherished  from  the  beginning. 
The  subjects  of  this  immediate  inspiration,  the  men 
who  spoke  because  they  were  filled  with  the  Holy 
Ghost,  had  stood  in  the  earliest  church  in  place  of 
books  and  even  of  the  ascended  Christ  himself. 
Such  men  and  women  were  preeminently  the 
bearers  of  the  new  revelation  and  the  interpreters 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     IO5 

of  the  old.  But  that  state  of  things  could  not  last. 
Vagaries  were  inevitable.  The  first  great  moral 
impulse  received  from  Jesus  had  spent  itself.  That 
impulse  could  be  made  fresh  again  only  by  contact 
with  Christ  such  as  men  could  now  find  only  in 
the  Gospels.  The  theory  of  immediate  inspiration 
had  had  consequences  which  the  Apostle  Paul 
himself  deemed  very  questionable.  A  little  later, 
imposture  had  been  not  unknown,  and  the  evils  of 
fanaticism  not  unfelt.  It  was  a  theory  which  in 
the  extreme  form  of  it,  at  any  rate,  was  bound  to 
give  place  with  the  lapse  of  time,  with  the  waning 
of  the  first  enthusiasm,  and  with  the  presence  of 
reflecting  and  cultivated  people  in  the  Christian 
church.  And  when  this  sense  of  immediate  inspi- 
ration gave  way,  something  must  take  its  place. 
That  thing  was  the  body  of  the  apostolic  writ- 
ings, viewed  as  the  authoritative  witness  to  Christ, 
as  oracles  of  God  and  the  depositary  of  the  divine 
wisdom. 

Shortly  after  the  middle  of  the  second  century 
there  appeared  in  Phrygia  one  Montanus,  sup- 
ported by  two  women,  Maximilla  and  Priscilla. 
Montanus  claimed  to  be  the  Paraclete  whom  Jesus 
promised.  He  professed  to  be  perfect,  and  ex- 
horted men  to  perfection.  The  age  of  the  Law 
and  of  the  Prophets  was  but  the  childhood  of  man. 
Even  the  time  of  the  Gospel  in  Christ  was  but 
man's  youth.  The  new  period  of  the  Paraclete  was 
to  be  the  full  maturity  of  the  race.  Montanus  made 
but  little  use  of  Scripture,  except  of  that  passage 


I06     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

in  the  Fourth  Gospel  in  which  he  recognized  his 
own  commission.  He  is  alleged  by  others  to  have 
favored  the  Apocalypse.  The  end  of  the  world 
was  soon  coming  at  Pepuza.  Stringent  fasting  and 
penitence  were  enjoined.  Hatred  of  all  art  and 
learning  characterized  the  new  movement.  The 
leaders,  and  perhaps  the  body  of  the  adherents 
generally,  were  excommunicated  from  the  churches. 
Maximilla  survived  the  other  two  for  some  years 
and  under  her  able  leadership  the  movement  made 
inroads  upon  the  church  of  Asia  Minor,  and  at  one 
time  seemed  Hkely  to  sweep  everything  before  it. 
It  drifted  into  fanaticism,  and  in  some  cases,  no 
doubt,  into  gross  immorality.  Yet  the  movement 
had  wide  success,  and  that  far  beyond  the  land  of 
its  origin.  Tertullian  became  an  adherent.  It  had 
confessors  and  martyrs  of  whom  the  church  might 
have  been  proud.  It  did  not  wholly  disappear 
until  the  sixth  century. 

Nor  can  it  be  denied  that  the  movement,  even  in 
its  distorted  form,  embodied  a  primary  principle  of 
Christianity.  Movements  like  this  have  recurred, 
now  and  then,  throughout  the  Christian  ages. 
But  there  is  this  difference.  Montanus  had  no 
New  Testament  Scripture,  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  understand  that  word.  He  had  no  canon  of 
inspiration  to  which  his  own  must  be  referred. 
He  had  no  Christian  sacred  book  already  acknowl- 
edged, and  along  with  which  his  own  new  revela- 
tions must  be  read.  The  New  Testament  Canon 
came  into  existence,  as   canon,  partly  to   control 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     10/ 

such  wandering  inspirations  as  his  own.  It  be- 
came a  part  of  the  faith  of  subsequent  Christen- 
dom to  give  to  the  inspiration  of  the  Apostles,  and 
to  the  revelation  as  it  came  through  Christ,  a  spe- 
cific sense  and  an  altogether  unique  quality,  and  in 
this  sense  to  say  that  the  age  of  revelation  was 
past.  The  Christians  would  have  said  that  what 
we,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  have 
henceforth  to  do,  is  to  interpret  into  our  own  life 
and  time  the  Scriptures  of  the  New  Testament. 

The  very  incarnation  of  this  new  spirit  of  author- 
ity are  two  writers  whom  we  have  already  often 
named.  These  are  Irenaeus  and  TertuUian.  Ire- 
naeus  was  an  Asiatic,  but  spent  his  whole  later  life 
among  the  Greek-speaking  peoples  in  the  valley  of 
the  Rhone,  and  died  as  Bishop  of  Lyons.  Tertul- 
lian,  on  the  other  hand,  wrote  in  Latin.  He  was  a 
native  of  North  Africa,  and  a  Roman  in  spirit 
through  and  through.  The  lots  of  these  two  men 
would  seem  to  have  been  cast  far  apart;  but  in 
thought  they  are  close  together.  Both  had  strong 
feeHng  for  the  rising  catholic  church.  Both  used 
the  Canon,  as  they  came  to  conceive  it,  as  the  divine 
instrument  in  the  consolidating  of  the  organization 
of  that  church. 

Irenaeus  speaks  more  than  once  of  his  boyhood 
in  Asia  Minor.  But  he  seems  to  have  left  that 
country  before  155  a.d.  He  was  teaching  in  Rome 
at  the  time  of  the  death  of  Polycarp.  He  appears 
to  have  succeeded  the  martyr  bishop  Pothinus  in 
Lyons,  after  the  year  177.     Even  before  that  time 


I08     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

he  would  seem  to  have  been  in  high  honor  in  the 
churches  of  the  Rhone  valley,  having  been  chosen 
to  bear  to  Rome  the  touching  letter  concerning  the 
persecution,  which  was  written  on  behalf  of  the 
churches  in  Lyons  and  Vienne.  He  died  about 
200  A.D.  He  was  a  man  much  beloved  and  pos- 
sessed of  qualities  of  leadership.  In  all  the  great 
controversies  of  his  time  he  had  his  part.  But 
with  all  his  zeal  he  exerts  an  influence  for  peace 
in  the  midst  of  those  controversies.  Characteristic 
is  his  appeal  to  Victor,  Bishop  of  Rome,  beseech- 
ing Victor  not  to  excommunicate  the  Asiatic 
Christians  for  their  attitude  in  the  paschal  con- 
troversies. He  is  known  to  us  chiefly  through 
his  writings  against  the  heresies  of  the  age.  For 
Irenaeus  the  fourfold  Gospel  is  assured.^  Two 
Apostles  and  two  pupils  of  Apostles  transmit  to  us 
thus,  beyond  dispute,  the  tradition  concerning  Our 
Lord.  It  was  Irenaeus  also  who  made  a  begin- 
ning of  the  use  of  the  four  living  figures  named  in 
the  Apocalypse,  the  ox,  the  Hon,  the  man,  and  the 
eagle,  as  symbols  of  the  four  Evangelists.  Every 
departure  from  the  sacred  number  of  the  Gospels, 
whether  for  the  acceptance  of  a  greater  number  or 
for  the  rejection  of  one  of  these,  is  heresy.  The 
letters  of  Paul  belong  also  unequivocally  to  the 
new  Scripture.  The  new  Scriptures  are  as  truly 
the  gift  of  God  for  the  guidance  of  the  church  as 
were  th6  old.  It  is  interesting  to  note  that  in  all 
of  Irenaeus*  New  Testament  citations  —  and  he  has 

1  See  Jiilicher,  Einleitung,  p.  303. 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     lOQ 

more  than  two  hundred  from  Paul  alone  —  he  knows 
well  whence  his  citations  are  taken,  and  lays  weight 
upon  the  naming  of  his  sources.  On  the  other 
hand,  as  to  the  Old  Testament  quotations,  he  fre- 
quently does  not  know  what  book  he  quotes.  The 
apostolic  writings  are  to  the  Christians  what  the 
Law  and  the  Prophets  had  been  to  the  Jews.  Up 
to  Irenaeus'  time  the  word  Scripture  had  been 
the  solemn  distinction  of  the  Old  Testament;  in 
Irenaeus,  however,  the  word  is  used  for  the  books 
of  the  new  covenant  as  well.  Only  the  title  New 
Testament  does  not  yet  occur.  It  was  the  Apostles 
who  truly  delivered  the  oral  tradition.  It  was 
these  alone  who  transmitted  to  us  the  written 
record.  These  records,  therefore,  take  the  place 
of  the  Apostles  as  the  witness  of  Christ  in  the 
church.  For  Irenaeus  the  core  of  the  apostolic 
part  of  the  New  Testament,  as  distinguished  from 
the  Gospels,  was  of  course  constituted  by  the 
Pauline  Epistles.  How  many  letters  other  than 
the  Pauline  letters  Irenaeus  knew,  it  is  not  possible 
for  us  to  make  out.  Certainly  he  had  First  Peter 
and  First  and  Second  John.  But  there  is  at  any 
rate  no  such  fixed  determination  of  a  canonical 
number  of  Epistles  as  we  have  seen  above  in  the 
case  of  the  Gospels. 

Tertullian  was  the  earliest  of  the  Latin  ecclesias- 
tical Fathers  in  the  same  sense  in  which  Irenaeus 
had  been  the  first  Greek  Father  of  the  church.  He 
was  born  in  Carthage,  the  son  of  a  soldier,  and  was 
an  advocate  by  profession.      He  was  converted. 


no     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

perhaps  in  Rome,  before  the  year  197.  He  became 
presbyter  in  Carthage,  and  at  some  time  between 
202  and  207  he  broke  with  the  catholic  community, 
to  become  a  Montanist.  He  was  a  man  of  educa- 
tion. But  when  he  became  a  Christian  he  could 
never  speak  with  sufficient  contempt  of  aesthetic 
culture  and  secular  learning.  He  is  perhaps  the 
most  original  of  the  Christian  writers  before  the 
Nicene  age.  He  presents  the  singular  contrast  of 
a  man  who  was,  at  times,  intensely  a  legalist  in  his 
appeal  to  Scripture  and  the  episcopal  organization 
as  his  authority,  but  who,  again,  was  uncompro- 
mising in  his  adherence  to  what  he  deemed  a  higher 
law.  It  was  under  this  last  impulse,  of  course, 
that  he  gave  himself  up  to  Montanism.  His  use 
of  the  word  Scripture  is  the  same  with  that  of 
Irenseus.  The  weight  of  the  New  Testament  is 
derived  from  the  fact  that  it  was  written  by  Apos- 
tles who  had  diligently  handed  on  that  faith  which 
they  received  from  Christ.  He  calls  the  apostolic 
writings  "the  divine  literature."  He  has  a  par- 
ticular fondness  for  the  lawyer's  word,  "  Instru- 
mentum,"  the  legal  record  in  a  case,  the  document 
in  evidence,  the  means  of  proof.  He  has  the 
phrase  "the  whole  Instrument  of  both  Testa- 
ments." He  uses  this  word  Instrument  even 
of  the  parts  of  the  apostolic  writing ;  for  example, 
"  the  Instrument  of  Paul,"  to  which,  by  the  way, 
the  Hebrews  does  not  belong,  and  is  therefore  of 
less  worth.  But  not  even  Tertullian  has  the  actual 
title,  "the  New  Testament."     He,  as  well  as  Ire- 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     III 

naeus,  speaks  of  the  Old  Testament  usually  under 
the  title,  *'the  Law  and  the  Prophets,"  as  also 
of  the  New  under  the  title,  "  the  Gospel  and  the 
Apostles." 

The  actual  title,  "  the  New  Testament,"  for  the 
books,  as  distinguished  from  the  same  phrase  in  .^^^^ 
the  sense  of  the  new  covenant  in  Christ,  seems  to 
occur  for  the  first  time  in  a  passage  which  Eusebius 
has  preserved  from  some  unknown  writer  against 
Montanism,  who  has  been  assigned  approximately 
to  the  year  193.1  That  title  occurs  in  this  sig- 
nificant phrase :  "  The  doctrine  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, to  which  it  is  impossible  that  anything  should 
be  added,  and  from  which  nothing  should  be  sub- 
tracted by  one  who  has  resolved  to  live  according 
to  the  Gospel."  The  title  occurs  soon  afterward  in 
Clement,  in  Origen  many  times,  and  with  all  sub- 
sequent writers.  It  need  not  be  said  that  for  those 
who  use  this  title,  the  reckoning  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment as  on  the  same  level  with  the  Old  Testament 
is  a  thing  achieved. 

To  these  testimonies  from  the  western  church 
at  the  end  of  the  second  century  we  must  add 
that  of  the  Muratori  Fragment.^  This  Frag- 
ment is  a  portion  of  a  list  found  in  1740  by  the 
famous  Milanese  librarian,  Muratori,  embedded  in 
a  manuscript  of  Ambrose,  with  which  manuscript 
it  is  needless  to  say  that  the  Fragment  has  nothing 
to  do.     It  contains  a  Hst  of  the  books  of  the  New 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.v.  i6.  ii. 

2  See  Zahn,  Gesch.  d.  N.  T.  Kanons,  ii.  I-143. 


112     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

Testament  and,  presumably,  had  been  preceded  by 
a  list  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  as  well. 
It  is  in  barbarous  Latin,  which  perhaps  is  due  to 
the  copyist,  if  the  original  was  in  Greek.  Greek 
was  certainly  the  prevailing  language  of  the  Roman 
Christian  community  until  toward  the  end  of  the 
second  century.  The  origin  of  the  Fragment  in 
Rome  is  reasonably  certain,  and  the  time  of  its 
appearance  can  be  determined  with  comparative 
accuracy.  Probably  it  was  written  before  the  year 
190.  It  is  interesting  to  us,  because  it  is  the  first 
document  which  we  possess  which  makes  a  busi- 
ness of  enumerating  the  books  in  order,  and  con- 
cerns itself  exclusively  with  the  question  which 
occupies  us  in  these  lectures. 

The  first  line  of  the  Fragment  is  broken  and 
begins  with  the  mention  of  Mark.  But  there  is 
no  doubt  that  the  author  knew  also  the  Gospel 
according  to  Matthew.  He  mentions  no  other 
Gospels  than  the  four.  He  has  thirteen  letters  of 
Paul,  but  no  mention  of  the  Hebrews.  He  dis- 
cusses letters  of  Paul  to  the  Laodiceans  and  Alex- 
andrians, which  he  deems  spurious.  There  is  no 
mention  of  First  or  Second  Peter,  of  James,  or  of 
Third  John.  Besides  the  Apocalypse  of  John,  he 
himself  would  accept  the  Apocalypse  of  Peter. 
In  regard  to  Hermas,  on  the  other  hand,  he  knows 
that  some  are  inclined  to  receive  it.  He  himself 
rejects  it,  as  not  being  of  apostolic  origin.  One 
might  infer  from  this  last  sentence  that  apostolic 
authorship  was  the  principle  of  admission  to  the 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     II3 

Canon.     But  that  principle  is  not  consistently  car- 
ried through.      Notable  is  the  coincidence  of  this 
list  with  that  which  we  have  gathered  from  Irenaeus 
and  TertuUian.     One  sees  how  widespread  is  the 
agreement  which  is  manifest,  thus  before  the  year 
200.     In  Gaul,  Carthage,  Rome,  and  Asia  Minor 
we   iind   this    sacred   body  of   apostolic  writings, 
which  are  to  be  read  on  the    Lord's  day  along 
with  the  Old  Testament  in  the  Christian  churches. 
If  we  ,should  turn  for  a  moment  to  Alexandria, 
in  this  same  last  decade  of  the  second  century,  we 
should  discover  that  the  Alexandrine  Canon  differed 
not  a  little,  both  in  the  idea  and  in  the  compass  of 
it,  from  that  which  we  have  seen  current  in  the 
West.      Clement,  who  had   been  born  of   pagan 
parents,  possibly  in  Athens,  was  the  great  teacher, 
along  with  Pantaenus,  in  the  school  for  catechu- 
mens in  the  church  at  Alexandria,  before  the  year 
190.     He  was   driven  out  by  the  persecution  in 
202  or  203,  and  seems  to  have  died  in  the  Orient, 
some  time  before  the  year  215.     He  was  a  man 
who  had  read  and  travelled  much.     He  was  the 
first  to  work  out  a  system  of  Christian  doctrine  in 
something  like  a  harmonious  way.      He  was  the 
defender  of  learning,  and  insisted  upon  the  need 
of  it  to  the  noblest  Christian  Hfe.    The  influence  of 
Plato  upon  him  is  everywhere  evident.     Thoughts 
like  these  are  cardinal  for  him  :  the  Logos  of  God 
is  the  teacher  of  man,  and  the  purpose  of  God  is 
the  education  of  the  race.     His  Protreptikos  be- 
longs in  the  class  of  the  Apologies.     But  in  the 


114     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

skill  of  its  composition,  and  as  well  in  the  beauty 
of  its  language,  it  far  surpasses  most  of  these.  His 
Paidagogos,  or  Teacher,  is  one  of  the  most  charm- 
ing of  the  early  Christian  writings.  It  is  filled 
with  the  truest  spirit  of  learning,  with  deep  piety, 
and  with  tender  interest  for  the  welfare  of  others. 
It  is  with  reluctance  that  one  gives  up  those  beau- 
tiful hymns  which  have  been  assigned  to  Clement. 
But  the  opinion  of  most  scholars  is  against  their 
Clementine  origin.  The  best  known  of  them  is  in 
many  of  our  hymn  books  :  — 

Shepherd  of  tender  youth 
Guiding  in  love  and  truth 

Through  devious  ways, 
Christ  our  triumphant  king, 
We  come  thy  name  to  sing, 
Hither  our  children  bring 

Tributes  of  praise. 

For  Clement,  as  for  Irenaeus  and  for  Tertul- 
lian,  the  four  Gospels  make  up  that  portion  of  the 
Canon.  The  Gospel  according  to  the  Egyptians 
he  deems  less  trustworthy  as  a  source  of  informa- 
tion concerning  Jesus.  But  he  cites,  as  from  Scrip- 
ture, words  of  the  Lord  from  other  than  canonical 
sources.  He  has  fourteen  letters  of  Paul ;  that  is, 
he  includes  in  this  number  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews.  In  fact,  he  frequently  alludes  to  the  He- 
brews as  a  work  of  Paul.  Of  the  catholic  Epis- 
tles he  has  First  Peter,  First  and  Second  John, 
and  Jude.  Besides  these  he  has,  of  course,  the 
Book  of  the  Acts,  and  also  the  Apocalypse.     He 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     II5 

cites  Hermas  as  divine  revelation.  The  letters  of 
Barnabas  and  of  Clement  of  Rome  are  writings  of 
Apostles,  and  the  Didach^  is  Scripture.  From  all 
of  this  it  is  very  evident  that  Clement  took  a  more 
generous  view  of  writings  outside  of  the  subse- 
quent Canon  than  did  Irenaeus  or  Tertullian.  He 
manifests  more  understanding  than  does  either  of 
these  of  the  conditions  under  which  the  Christian 
literature  had  grown  up.  He  realizes  that  the 
process  of  the  formation  of  the  Canon  was  a  more 
or  less  conscious  selection.  He  recognizes  many 
books  outside  of  the  Canon  as  inspired.  Even  the 
Sibyl  was  a  prophetess  of  God  to  the  heathen.  It 
is  as  if  to  him  the  Canon  were  but  the  centre  of  the 
sphere  of  revelation,  and  as  if  the  lines  of  that  reve- 
lation went  out  into  all  the  realm  of  knowledge  and 
of  life.  This  is  a  position  absolutely  unthinkable 
to  the  narrow  and  legalistic  mind  of  Tertullian. 
Clement  knows  that  even  the  Canon  itself  had  a 
different  content  and  area  in  different  lands  which 
he  had  visited.  This,  also,  Tertullian  would  hardly 
have  owned. 

And  now  that  we  have  reached  the  turning-point 
in  our  discussion,  we  may  pause  to  consider  for  a 
moment  the  forces  which  we  have  seen  leading  up 
to  the  canonization.  How  the  thing  looked  to  the 
great  theologians  of  the  later  church  we  may 
learn  from  two  striking  examples.^ 

That  zealous  exegete  and  commentator,  Theodo- 
ret,  who  died  in  457  a.d.,  elaborates  the  well-known 

1  Given  by  Jiilicher,  Einleitung,  p.  307. 


Il6  THE    END    OF   THE    SECOND    CENTURY 

theory  of  the  Song  of  Solomon,  that  it  is  an  alle- 
gory of  Christ  and  the  church.  He  well  knows 
that  there  are  those  who  dissent  from  this  interpre- 
tation, and  who  would  take  the  book  in  its  obvious 
hterary  sense  as  a  praise  of  faithful  love.  But  to 
these  he  replies,  that  we  ought  to  remember  how 
much  wiser  and  more  spiritually  minded  than  we, 
were  the  blessed  Fathers  who  had  put  this  book  in 
the  class  of  sacred  Scriptures,  canonizing  it  as  a 
book  to  be  read  for  the  spiritual  profit  of  the 
church.  Certainly  they  would  never  have  done 
this,  had  they  taken  such  a  commonplace  view  of 
the  book  as  that  which  his  opponents  suggest. 
We  might  say  in  passing  that  we  have  here  clearly 
before  us  the  situation  in  which,  even  as  regards 
such  a  book  as  the  Canticles,  men  no  longer  ask 
themselves  in  natural  way  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
book  and  its  claim  to  a  place  in  the  Canon.  But 
they  find  the  book  in  the  Canon  and  attribute  to  it 
a  meaning  accordingly.  And  this,  which  happens 
to  an  Old  Testament  book,  befell  the  New  Testa- 
ment books  as  well.  The  whole  allegorical  method 
of  exegesis  is  only  a  method  of  finding  an  extraor- 
dinary meaning  in  a  book  whose  ordinary  and 
natural  meaning  does  not  seem  exalted  enough  to 
suit  the  character  attributed  to  the  Scripture  as  a 
whole.  But  the  main  point  for  us  in  this  citation 
from  Theodoret  is  his  acknowledgment  that  the 
origin  of  the  collections  of  Scripture  was  in  free 
choice,  and  that  that  choice  was  guided  by  a 
spiritual  intent. 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     II/ 

The  same  general  notion  of  the  way  in  which  the 
Canon  came  to  be  may  be  gathered  from  that  which 
Origen  says  in   reference   to   the  preface   to  the 
Gospel  according  to  Luke.      He  declares  that,  just 
as  in  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament  the  gift  of  the 
discriminating  of  spirits  operated  to  make  the  col- 
lection what   it  was,  so  was  it   also  in  the  case 
of  the  New  Testament.     "  Many  set  out  to  write 
Gospels.     But  those  who  were  responsible  for  the 
guidance  of  the  church  would  not   receive  all  of 
those  works.    They  chose  out  these  four,  and  these 
only,  to  give  them  place  and  honor  in  the  Chris- 
tian church."     Here  is  the   clear   sense  that  the 
New  Testament  had  come  to  pass  by  process  of 
choice,    and   that   the   church   itself,    through   its 
leaders,  had  exercised  that  choice.     These  leaders 
are  assumed  to  have  been  guided  by  the  divine 
Spirit  in  that  exercise  of  choice.     Nothing  could 
be  truer  than  is  this  apprehension  of  the  history 
which  we  have  reviewed.     The   New  Testament 
Canon  is  the  work  of   the    leading  thinkers  and 
practical  guides,  the  bishops  and  theologians  of 
the  second  and  third  centuries.     The  influence  of 
single  personalities  was  unquestionably  great.    The 
feeling  and  custom  of  individual  communities  was 
operative.      The    practice   of   other    communities 
was  no  doubt  consulted.     But  the   decision  was 
with  the  bishops,  we  may  be  sure. 

And  no  such  remarkable  unanimity  of  choice  as 
that  which  we  have  observed  is  thinkable  except 
we  suppose  that,  from  all  sides,  Uke  forces  were 


Il8     THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

makingfor  the  decision,  and  essentially  similar  points 
of  view  for  the  canonization  prevailed.  Nothing 
is  more  striking  than  the  fact  that  there  were  no 
great  councils,  synods,  or  decrees  touching  the 
Canon  until  long  after  the  time  to  which  we  refer. 
There  is  an  obscure  allusion  in  one  of  Tertullian's 
tracts,  as  if  in  an  African  provincial  synod  which 
he  mentions,  the  matter  had  been  subject  of  de- 
bate.^ But  this  is  an  isolated  case.  Synods  and 
councils  had  no  influence  which  we  can  trace  in 
the  making  of  the  Canon.  They  simply  registered 
the  Canon  after  it  was  made.  Even  when  Origen 
discusses  differences  of  opinion  in  the  several 
national  churches,  he  nowhere  intimates  that  there 
were  conferences  of  the  church  leaders  to  secure  a 
compromise  of  these  differences.  That  compromise 
came  to  pass,  that  uniformity  was  secured,  appar- 
ently through  usage  and  personal  influence. 

It  is  important  to  remember  this,  because  in  the 
excess  of  zeal  with  which  the  historical  view  of  this 
matter  has  been  taken  up,  some  have  allowed  them- 
selves to  speak  as  if  the  Canon  were  somehow  the 
arbitrary  and  intentional  contrivance  of  shrewd 
church  leaders  to  secure  ecclesiastical  ends.  The 
question  is  sometimes  debated  as  if  it  were  possible 
that  the  most  valuable  books  were  those  which  had 
been  left  out  of  the  collection,  and  then  destroyed 
in  order  that  men  might  not  know  how  valuable 
they  were.  But  it  is  not  evident  how  we  can  ever 
know  that  just  the  most  valuable  books  were  those 

1  Tertullian,  De  Pudic.  lo.    See  Holtzmann,  Einleitung,  p.  138. 


THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY     I IQ 

which  have  left  no  trace.  It  has  been  hinted  that 
the  determination  to  sustain  a  given  doctrinal  view 
may  have  guided  the  selection.  But  in  truth,  when 
one  reflects,  what  chiefly  impresses  us  is  the  great 
variety  of  doctrinal  views  which  are  included 
within  the  New  Testament  collection.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  that  one  doctrinal  view  dominates  the 
New  Testament.  Or  if  any  such  view  were  in- 
tended thus  to  dominate,  it  is  not  easy  to  see  why 
the  traces  of  the  others  were  not  more  diHgently 
removed.  Variety  of  doctrinal  type  was  just  the 
trait  of  the  second  generation  of  the  second  cen- 
tury. And  this  was  the  generation  which  in  good 
part  fixed  the  usage  of  the  New  Testament  books. 
It  is  true  that  the  moment  at  which  the  church  be- 
came conscious  of  this  body  of  literature  as  New 
Testament,  was  proximately  coincident  with  that 
moment  in  which  the  Roman  baptismal  symbol 
was  carried  back  to  the  Apostles  as  the  rule  of 
faith,  and  bishops  came  to  deem  that  they  ruled 
by  a  divine  right,  in  the  name  of  the  Apostles  and 
of  Christ.  But  this  body  of  literature,  although  not 
yet  under  the  apprehension  of  it  as  New  Testa- 
ment, had  been  in  use  in  the  services  for  worship 
in  the  Christian  communities,  with  but  insignificant 
additions  or  subtractions,  already  a  generation  be- 
fore the  doctrinal  or  the  ecclesiastical  issue  became 
acute. 

It  cannot  have  escaped  us  in  this  study  of  it,  how 
profound  and  vital  the  movement  was,  how  inevita- 
ble and  irresistible  it  was,  how  far  it  was  from  being 


120    THE  END  OF  THE  SECOND  CENTURY 

merely  a  superficial  arrangement,  an  artificial 
convention,  an  ecclesiastical  design.  The  move- 
ment, in  its  decisive  character,  was  already  far  on 
the  way  before  even  those  leaders  who  had  great- 
est insight  cherished  any  design  concerning  it.  It 
was  far  on  the  way  before  the  great  mass  of  the 
Christian  people  so  much  as  knew  what  was  hap- 
pening. And  yet  it  was  the  mass  of  the  Christian 
people  who,  out  of  the  depths  of  their  rehgious  life 
and  need,  were  furnishing  the  very  force  by  which 
the  end  was  being  achieved.  Time  was  when  his- 
torians were  disposed  to  credit  the  great  makers  of 
history,  and  even  masses  of  men,  with  full  con- 
sciousness of  all  that  they  accomplished.  Every 
great  movement  in  human  history  proves  the  con- 
trary. Here,  for  example,  we  see  that  the  Christian 
movement  had  within  itself,  all  unconsciously,  both 
the  goal  toward  which  it  moved  and  the  force  by 
which  it  was  ceaselessly  propelled  toward  that 
goal.  Men  were  the  free  and  voluntary  bearers  of 
that  impulse.  They  were,  without  knowing  it,  the 
incarnation  of  that  impulse.  And  yet  it  would  be 
altogether  false  to  say  that  any  one  of  them  per- 
ceived the  full  issue  at  the  beginning,  or,  until  later 
stages,  deliberately  set  himself  to  further  that  issue. 
It  is  just  such  movements  as  these  which  impress 
us  with  the  sense  of  the  guidance  of  God  in  the 
life  of  man. 


LECTURE   IV 

THE  CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE 

WEST 


LECTURE    IV 

THE  CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE 

WEST 

In  the  preceding  lecture  the  Muratori  Fragment 
engaged  our  interest  as  being  the  first  list  which 
has  come  down  to  us  in  which  the  attempt  is  made 
to  outHne  the  New  Testament  Canon.  It  is  the 
first  formal  endeavor  to  mark  the  boundaries  of 
the  new  collection  of  writings  which  were  fast 
coming  to  be  regarded  as  sacred  Scripture,  parallel 
to  the  Old  Testament,  and  indeed,  for  Christians, 
of  authority  greater  than  that  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. The  purpose  of  the  author  —  whom,  by  the 
way,  Lightfoot  thought  to  have  been  Hippolytus  — 
was  to  declare  what  books  belonged  to  this  new 
body  of  Scripture,  and  what  books,  even  though 
in  use  in  Christian  communities,  were  to  be  deemed 
as  not  belonging  to  that  body.  We  assumed  that 
the  fragment  was  written  at  some  time  before  the 

year  190. 

But  the  Muratori  Canon  is  still  more  interesting 
as  reveaHng  to  us  some,  at  least,  of  the  principles 
of  discrimination,  as  these  lay  in  the  author's  mind. 
It  gives  us  a  measure  of  insight  into  the  motives 
which  prevailed  with  him  in  his  decision  concerning 

123 


124        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

this  book  or  that.  And  these  motives  are,  in  a 
way,  much  more  interesting  than  are  the  decisions 
themselves.  We  may  therefore  pause  at  this  point 
in  our  narrative  and,  taking  up  the  Muratori  Canon 
once  again,  ask  ourselves  questions  concerning  it, 
of  a  different  sort  from  those  which  before  engaged 
our  thought.  The  fragment  reveals  some  of  the 
forces  which  were  operative  in  the  minds  of  the 
men  of  that  age.  It  lets  us  see  what  constituted 
the  claim  of  some  of  the  major  books,  at  all  events, 
and  what  was  the  quality  upon  which  the  Christian 
acceptance  or  rejection  of  a  given  book  as  Scrip- 
ture was  made  to  depend.  For  of  course  this  list, 
even  if  we  suppose  it  to  have  been  written  by  some 
authoritative  person,  is  not  a  decree.  The  author 
simply  registers  what  he  deems  to  be  the  prevailing 
Christian  sentiment,  and  puts  forth  reasons  with 
which  those  whom  he  addresses  are  supposed  to 
be  familiar.  The  issue  of  the  application  of  these 
principles,  he  acknowledges,  may  not  be  the  same 
for  all  men's  minds.  But  the  point  of  view  is  that 
which  he  supposes  everybody  shares.  And  this 
point  of  view,  these  motives  of  the  canonization, 
are  far  more  important  for  us  to  consider  than  is 
merely  the  boundary  of  the  Canon  as,  by  the 
Fragmentist's  time,  and  in  that  part  of  the  world 
with  which  he  was  familiar,  that  boundary  began 
to  be  achieved.  Compared  with  these  guiding 
apprehensions  of  the  matter  the  question  whether 
this  or  that  book  was  by  a  given  author  included 
in  the  rising  Canon  is  of  minor  consequence. 


CLOSING    OF   THE    CANON    IN   THE   WEST        125 

The  Muratori  Canon  remarks  certain  differences 
among   the   Gospels.      The   author   has   reflected 
upon  the  fact  that  not  all  of  the  EvangeUsts  speak 
as  eye-witnesses  of  the  life  of  Jesus.     He  is  there- 
fore careful  to  assert  that  those  two  who  were  not 
of  the  Twelve,  namely  Mark  and  Luke,  give  us  their 
narratives  under  the  authority  of  Apostles,  namely 
of  Peter  and  of  Paul.     The  author  thus  belongs 
to  the  time  which  has  begun  to  reckon  Paul,  to  all 
intents  and  purposes,  as  one  of  the  Twelve.     The 
antagonism  of  the  Twelve  to  Paul  has  been  for- 
gotten.    It  is  well  known  that  the  tradition  never 
did  take  any  account  of  the  election  of  Matthias 
to  take  the  place  of  Judas.     The  author  has,  how- 
ever, not  reflected  upon  the  fact  that  we  have  no 
knowledge  that  Paul  was  an  eye-witness  to  a  single 
event  in  the  life  of  Jesus.     Or,  rather,  the  author 
belongs  to  the  time  in  which  the  inspiration  of  the 
Apostle  was  held  to  take  the  place  of  his  having 
been  an  eye-witness.     He  expHcitly  says  that  the 
great  facts  are  guaranteed  in  all  the  Gospels,  and 
are  complete  in  all,  through  the  influence  of  the  one 
controlling  divine  Spirit.     The  origin  of  the  Fourth 
Gospel   is   ascribed   to   the   fact   that    the    Evan- 
geUst  John  was  urged  by  the  other  Apostles  and 
by  the  bishops  to  make  this  addition  to  the  knowl- 
edge of    the   world   concerning   Jesus.     Andrew, 
indeed,  had  special  revelation  that  he  should  make 
of  John  this  same  request.     Emphasis  is  laid  upon 
the  fact  that  the  author  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  de- 
scribes himself,  in  his  First  Epistle,  as  one  who  had 


126   CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST 

seen  and  heard  that  of  which  he  told.  The  being 
an  eye-witness  is  evidently  the  main  matter  with 
reference  to  the  authorship  of  Gospels.  And  yet, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  distinction  is  not  rigidly  car- 
ried through.  According  to  the  Muratori  Frag- 
ment the  Book  of  the  Acts  also  confines  itself  to 
that  which  Luke  himself  had  witnessed.  This 
is  the  reason  why  the  narrative  breaks  off  as 
it  does  without  relating  the  death  of  Paul. 

The  letters  of  Paul  are  placed  in  a  curious  order, 
beginning  with  the  First  Corinthians.  They  are, 
indeed,  addressed  to  seven  different  commxunities. 
But  that  very  fact,  that  their  number  is  thus  the 
sacred  number  of  completeness,  is  evidence  that  the 
letters  were  intended  by  their  author  for  the  instruc- 
tion and  edification  of  all  the  world.  The  fact  that 
there  are  also  seven  letters  in  the  Book  of  the 
Revelation  shows,  by  that  same  round  and  mysti- 
cal number,  the  destination  of  these,  and  of  the 
book  in  which  they  are  embodied,  for  the  edifica- 
tion of  all  Christendom.  How  surely  would  the 
author  of  the  Fragment  have  added  here  the 
interesting  fact  that  there  are  also  seven  catholic 
Epistles,  if  all  of  the  seven  had  been  known 
to  him.  The  four  letters  of  Paul  to  indi- 
viduals do  not  so  easily  fall  into  a  scheme. 
But  these  have  become  the  property  of  all  the 
world  because  they  deal  with  the  universal  prob- 
lem of  church  government ;  a  statement  which, 
by  the  way,  is  hardly  true  of  the  letter  to  Phile- 
mon. 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    12/ 

But,  after  all,  this  scheme  of  sevens  is  not  to 
be  taken  too  seriously.     It  is  only  a  devout  after- 
thought.    For  the  writer  rejects  letters  of  Paul  to 
the  Laodiceans  and  to  the  Alexandrians,  which  he 
knows  to  be  current,  not  because  they  do  not  fall 
in  with  his  scheme,  but  because  to  his  mind  they 
were  palpably  manufactured  by  heretics.     He  says 
that  they  cannot  be  put  with  the  genuine  letters, 
as  gall  cannot  be  mixed  with  honey.    In  all  of  this, 
however,  one  sees  what  it  is  at  which  the  author 
aims.       He    is    seeking    to    find    a    reason   why 
these  books  should  be  deemed  to  have  a  univer- 
sal application,  whereas  they  bear  upon  their  very 
face  the  evidence  that  their  original  destination 
was  a  limited  and  specific  one.     The  author  has 
not  risen  to  the  thought  that  these  books  have 
a  universal  significance  because  they  enshrine  so 
much  of  the  original  Christian  inspiration,  no  mat- 
ter what  was  the  conscious  intention  of  the  authors 
as  they  wrote.    The  Fragmentist  does  not  perceive, 
what  is  to  us  so  obvious,  that,  in  the  large,  the 
Christian  church  accepted  these  books  because  of 
its  feeling  for  their  spiritual  content,  and  only  after- 
ward reasoned  about  their  authorship,  their  origi- 
nal destination,   and  other  concrete  facts  of  the 
same  sort. 

But  what  the  author  says  concerning  Apoca- 
lypses is  most  interesting.  For  himself  he  accepts, 
beside  our  Book  of  the  Revelation,  the  Apocalypse 
of  Peter,  although  he  knows  that  there  are  many 
Christians  who  will  not  suffer  it  to  be  read  in  the 


128        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE   WEST 

churches.  But  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  though 
many  love  it,  may  not  be  placed  upon  the  same 
level  with  the  revelation  of  the  Apostle  John.  It 
has  been  written  within  comparatively  recent  years, 
and  by  a  man  whom  some  of  the  Fragmentist's 
readers  may  have  known.  It  may  still  be  read 
privately  for  edification.  But  the  inference  is  that 
only  such  works  as  are  deemed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  Apostles,  or,  at  least,  within  the  apostolic 
circle,  are  to  be  read  in  the  services  for  public 
worship.  There  is  no  place  for  the  Shepherd 
among  the  writings  of  the  Prophets,  that  is,  in 
the  Old  Testament,  because  the  number  of  the 
Prophets  is,  for  all  time,  complete.  That  asser- 
tion, by  the  by,  no  man  of  the  time  of  the 
author  of  the  Shepherd  would  have  admitted. 
And,  as  we  have  seen,  Athanasius  did  put  this 
book  and  the  Teachings  of  the  Twelve  Apos- 
tles with  certain  Apocryphal  books  of  the  Old 
Testament.  It  escapes  the  Fragmentist,  for  the 
moment,  that  the  Book  of  the  Revelation  is  a 
prophetical  book  within  the  limits  of  the  New 
Testament. 

When  the  author  of  the  Muratori  Fragment 
comes  to  speak  of  books  current  among  the  Val- 
entinians,  among  the  Marcionites,  and  in  other 
sects,  it  is  with  the  explicit  purpose  of  causing  the 
Canon,  as  accepted  within  the  church,  to  stand  out 
in  contrast  with  those  works  which  had  weight  in 
communities  which  he  deemed  to  be  Christian  only 
in   name.      What   the    Fragmentist   says    of    the 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 29 

Apostles,  as  being  the  witnesses,  ''at  the  end  of 
the  dispensation,"  would  seem  to  be  aimed  at  the 
Montanist  assertion  of  continuous  Christian  inspi- 
ration and  of  a  new  revelation  to  the  Montanists 
themselves. 

If  now  we  proceed  to  inquire  how  these  motives 
of   the  canonization  lay  in  the  mind  of  Iren^eus, 
we  shall  find  that,  from  the  nature  of  his  writine-s 
It  IS  not  so  easy  to  get  an  answer  in  detail.       But 
some   things    are    clear.       The   church   is    "built 
upon    the    foundation    of    the   Apostles."      This 
is   the   thought  which  Irenaeus   constantly  reiter- 
ates.      Through     the     unbroken     series     of    the 
bishops    from    the    Apostles'    time    the    church 
is  secured  against  the  loss  of  its   sacred  inherit- 
ance.    You  might  almost  expect  to  hear  Iren^us 
say    that,    because    of    this     unbroken    tradition 
through    the    bishops     from     the    Apostles,    the 
church  has  the  less  need  of  a  Canon  of  Scripture. 
But  that  is  by  no  means  the  case.     On  the  con- 
trary, it  is  of  supreme  importance  that  the  Chris- 
tians should  be  able  to  compare  the  doctrine  and 
order  of  the  church,  in  any  age,  with  that  outlined 
in  the  apostolic  documents,  and   so  to  prove  the 
identity  of  the  latest  with  the  earliest  Christianity. 
The  Apostles  and  the  bishops  are,  in  their  succes- 
sion,   the    living   bond   between   the    church    and 
Christ.    But  the  Apostles'  works  are  the  guarantee 
which  all  men  may  read  that  the  leaders  of  the 
church  have  not  departed  from  the  apostolic  ways. 
There  is  no  dissent  of  the  apostolic  writings  one 


130       CLOSING    OF   THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

from  another.  There  are  no  divergences,  in  order, 
life,  or  doctrine,  among  the  apostoUc  churches. 
There  never  have  been  such  divergences.  The 
same  Spirit  of  God  which  spoke  through  the 
Apostles  in  their  lifetime,  speaks  now  and  teaches 
through  their  written  word.  The  same  Spirit  of 
God  which  spoke  through  the  Apostles  in  their 
lifetime,  speaks  and  teaches  now  through  the 
living  leaders  of  the  church.  And  these  teachings 
are  one.  The  writings  of  the  Apostles  contain 
therefore  infallible  truth,  whether  they  transmit 
the  narrative  concerning  Jesus,  or  warn  against 
heretical  teachings,  or  give  counsel  concerning 
the  Hfe  of  the  believer,  or  touch  upon  the  organ- 
ization of  the  church.  This  series  of  ideas  is 
repeated  by  almost  all  the  western  Fathers  from 
Irenaeus  onward. 

You  might  almost  expect  the  rule  to  be  laid 
down  that,  as  everything  in  the  Old  Testament 
must  be  from  prophets,  so  everything  in  the  New 
Testament  must  be  from  the  hands  of  Apostles. 
But  to  a  consistent  declaration  of  that  sort  we  do 
not  come.  At  times  it  is  to  the  undoubted  credi- 
bility of  the  eye-witness  that  his  book  owes  its 
place  in  the  Canon.  Again,  it  is  the  spiritual  gift 
with  which  he  was  endued,  which  gift  the  hearts 
of  those  who  listen  to  his  word  must  own.  The 
question  whether  all  the  writings  thus  acknowl- 
edged had  Apostles  for  their  authors  is  not  sharply 
answered.  The  question  whether  the  Apostles 
wrote   other  books  than  those  which  the   church 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    13I 

thus  used  in  its  services  for  worship  is  not  directly 
discussed.  It  appears  that  reflection,  in  any  larger 
way,  upon  the  conditions  of  the  canonization,  then 
first  began  when  the  Canon  was  already  practically 
an  accompHshed  fact.  Reflection  shaped  itself 
to  a  theory  concerning  books  which-  were  already 
being  devoutly  read  in  the  pubHc  worship  of  the 
church.  It  is  not  as  if  ordered  and  conscious 
reflection,  at  this  time,  and  on  the  basis  of  some 
theory,  decided  what  books  ought  to  constitute  the 
sacred  Scripture  of  the  New  Testament,  and  then 
demanded  that  those  books  should  be  read.  When 
men  began  consciously  to  reason,  in  any  larger 
way,  upon  this  matter,  the  magnitude  with  which 
they  had  to  reckon  was  already  mainly  given. 
The  burden  of  proof  was  on  the  side  of  him  who 
would  have  withdrawn  anything  which  was  being 
read.  And,  equally,  it  was  on  the  side  of  him  who 
would  have  added  anything  which  was  not  being 
read.  First  after  the  men  had  a  New  Testament 
do  they  appear  to  have  asked  themselves,  why 
that  New  Testament  which  they  had,  took  precisely 
the  shape  with  which  they  were  familiar.  In  conse- 
quence of  this  state  of  things  the  answers  which  they 
give  appear  to  us,  often,  mere  justification  of  exist- 
ing circumstances.  The  theory  is  being  stretched 
to  meet  the  situation.  The  document  is  apostoHc 
because  it  is  read,  and  is  not,  as  they  continually  say, 
read  because  it  is  apostolic.  Or,  again,  the  argu- 
mentation is  so  remote  and  fragmentary,  so  fantastic 
often,  so  inadequate,  that  one  has  to  remind  himself 


132        CLOSING    OF   THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

how  irrefragable  is  the  thing  which  was  being 
argued  for  in  so  inconsequent  a  manner.  With 
a  kind  of  inevitableness  and  with  irresistible  force 
the  Christians  created  their  Canon.  In  uncon- 
sciousness they  worked ;  or,  if  you  choose,  in  that 
condition  above  the  ordinary  consciousness  of  man- 
kind in  which  great  works  of  genius  are  wrought, 
great  events  shape  themselves,  epochs  are  pre- 
pared, and  great  history,  especially  popular  history, 
is  made.  We  can  hardly  expect  to  be  led  by  the 
church  Fathers  into  the  workshop  where  this 
thing  was  executed,  and  have  explained  to  us  the 
principles  from  which  they  wrought.  They  did 
not  fully  know  the  principles  from  which  they 
wrought.  Just  why  the  New  Testament  appeared 
exactly  at  this  juncture,  and  so  rapidly,  and  in  pre- 
cisely the  shape  in  which  it  appears,  is  a  thing 
which  no  one  of  the  contemporaries  has  been  able 
fully  to  tell  us.  It  is,  sometimes,  as  if  the  men 
already  indulged  the  naive  assumption  that  there 
had  always  been  a  New  Testament ;  and  supposed 
that  men  had  always  viewed  the  apostolic  writings 
just  as  they  now  viewed  them.  There  is  much  in 
the  history  of  which  we  may  be  bold  to  say  that 
we,  at  this  distance,  read  it  more  accurately  than 
did  the  men  who  participated  in  the  making  of 
that  history.^ 

Despite  its  intimate  relation  to  Judaism,  and  so 
to  the  Old  Testament,  Christianity  was,  after  all, 
a  new  religion.     And  that  new  religion  could  not 

1  See  Julicher,  Einleitung,  p.  312  f. 


CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST         1 33 

be  expected  to  go  on  indefinitely  with  only  the  old 
book.     The  Christians  had  not  felt  the  lack  of  a 
book  of  their  own  at  the  first.     So  long  as  men 
had  Jesus  and  the  Apostles,  so  long  as  they  had 
even    prophets    and   teachers    in   every    Christian 
community,  w^ho   told    of    that  which    they  them- 
selves had  witnessed,  or  spoke  out  of  what  was  to 
them  full  and  conscious  inspiration  of   the  Holy 
Ghost,  no  one  thought  of  New  Testament  books. 
But  the  immense  impression  which  Jesus  had  made 
lost  something  in  being  conveyed,  even  by  those 
first  witnesses,  to  others.     Or,  rather,  it   became 
evident  that  that  impression  could  not  always  be 
conveyed  in  the  manner  in  which  the  early  wit- 
nesses had  transmitted  it.     The  immediate  certi- 
tude  was    gone.      The    first    enthusiasm   waned. 
Christians  "left  their   first   love,"  as    the  Apoca- 
lypse  poetically  puts   it.     The   sense  of   original 
inspiration    was    diminished.      Speakers    or    ex- 
horters  in  a  given  community  were  often  wanting. 
Men  were  perhaps  no  longer  present  whose  author- 
ity in  questions  of  life  and  doctrine  all  would  con- 
cede, and  upon  whom,  beyond  question,  the  Spirit 
of  God  rested.     The  Christians   sought  to  make 
that  good.     The  stronger  was  the  sense  of  their 
own  lack,  the  greater  was  the  tendency  of  these 
men  of  the  new  time  to  preserve,  and  to  defer  to, 
everything  written  that  had  come  down  to  them 
from    the   earlier   and   more   favored    generation. 
When  men  came  to  admit,  despite  the  fact  that 
the  remains  of  the  apostoHc  literature  were  scanty, 


134    CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST 

that  they  yet  gathered,  in  the  rule,  more  inspira- 
tion for  the  Christian  Ufe  out  of  this  apostolic 
literature  than  out  of  the  Old  Testament  plus  the 
interpretation  and  the  reminiscences  of  living 
teachers  or  of  wandering  prophets,  then  the  plac- 
ing of  new  Christian  Scriptures  beside  the  old 
sacred  books  had  become  inevitable. 

Moreover,  the  richer  the  content  of  a  rehgion  in 
the  realm  of  thought,  the  more  that  rehgion  claims 
to  be  a  complete  system  of  truth,  the  more  neces- 
sary is  it  that,  sooner  or  later,  it  shall  have  a  body 
of  literature  to  which  all  can  refer,  and  which  has 
for  all  an  acknowledged  and  regulative  force.  To 
ask  when  the  New  Testament  arose  is  simply  to 
ask  when  the  necessity  for  such  an  external  author- 
ity and  the  feeling  of  dependence  upon  the  elder 
generation,  gained  ascendency  over  the  fresh  con- 
sciousness of  spiritual  power  which  had  marked 
the  earhest  Christian  time.^  If  this  point  had 
been  reached  soon  after  the  death  of  the  Apostles, 
it  would  not  have  been  strange,  when  one  re- 
members over  what  wide  areas,  and  those  in  part 
areas  by  no  means  well  prepared  for  it,  the  new 
Gospel  spread.  But  the  exigency  would  be  felt 
with  ever  increasing  force,  as  men  of  every  nation- 
ality, of  every  sort  of  antecedent,  and  of  every  grade 
of  culture  thronged  into  the  Christian  church.  The 
exigency  would  be  felt  with  ever  increasing  force 
as  Christianity  began  to  draw  to  itself  the  atten- 
tion of  serious  people,  the  world  over,  and  men 

^See  Jiilicher,  EinUitun^,  p.  314. 


CLOSING   OF   THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST        1 35 

began  to  ask,  What  is  Christianity  ?  It  would  be 
felt  with  ever  growing  urgency  as  Christianity 
began  to  assimilate  to  itself  the  elements  of  culture, 
and  to  transform  with  its  spirit  whole  phases  of 
man's  life.  It  would  be  felt  with  ever  growing 
urgency  as  men  with  strong  interests,  speculative 
and  ascetic,  approached  Christianity  from  the 
outside  and  sought  to  appropriate  its  force  for 
their  own  purposes.  That  this  situation  became 
acute  in  the  conflict  of  Christianity  with  the  Gnos- 
tics and  with  the  Montanists  is  evident.  A  church 
in  conflict  with  opposing  elements  would  feel  the 
need  of  documents  and  authorities  earlier,  possibly, 
than  one  which  went  its  way  in  peace.  But  a 
church  whose  march  was  one  long  triumph,  a  reli- 
gion whose  superiority  was  on  all  hands  conceded, 
if  we  could  imagine  such  a  case,  would  yet  need  to 
give  an  account  of  itself  to  others,  and  to  come  to 
an  understanding  of  itself,  as  in  the  long  run  it 
could  do  only  through  documents  and  authorities. 
Quite  apart  from  Gnosticism  and  Montanism  the 
New  Testament  would  certainly  have  come  to 
pass. 

We  said  that  some  of  the  Apologists,  through 
their  excessive  veneration  for  the  Old  Testament, 
exerted  an  influence  which  retarded  the  growth  of 
the  New  Testament.  But  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
obvious  that  the  apologetic  influence,  in  the  large, 
would  work  to  further  the  growth  of  the  Canon. 
One  could  not  expect  Emperors  and  the  learned 
among  the  pagans  to  understand  what  Christianity 


136        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE   WEST 

was  and  what  it  proposed,  if  one  could  refer  only 
to  the  Old  Testament  and  to  the  words  of  enthu- 
siastic people.  We  have  seen  how  a  man  like 
Celsus,  being  a  man  of  books,  would  instinctively 
ask  himself,  What  literature  have  these  Chris- 
tians ?  We  have  seen  that,  to  some  extent,  the 
caricature  which  he  drew  was  due  to  the  fact  that 
he  described  the  whole  movement  as  he  saw  it, 
and  took,  as  acknowledged  and  representative, 
writings  which  many  Christians  would  not  have 
admitted  to  be  such.  Origen  was  at  a  great  advan- 
tage, in  answering  Celsus,  over  any  Christian  who 
might  have  attempted  the  answer  in  Celsus'  own 
time,  in  that  he  was  able  to  point  out  this  fact.  He 
was  able  to  say  that  such  and  such  documents  only 
were  acknowledged  among  Christians  as  setting 
forth  the  pure  ideal  of  Christianity.  Of  the  rest, 
some  were  viewed  with  greater  aversion  by  the 
Christians  than  they  could  possibly  be  viewed  by 
Celsus  himself. 

We  have  seen  that  it  was  upon  the  regular  read- 
ing of  the  apostolic  literature  in  the  public  services 
of  the  Christians  for  worship  that  the  hallowing 
of  this  literature  followed.  The  later  generations 
would  have  said  that  they  read  these  books  because 
they  deemed  them  inspired  and  sacred.  So  we  say 
to-day.  The  earlier  generations  read  them  because 
the  books  told  of  Christ  and  took  the  place  of  the 
Apostles.  They  came  to  deem  sacred  and  inspired, 
writings  which  did  thus  tell  of  Christ  and  take  the 
place  of  the  Apostles,  and  which  they  had  been 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 37 

accustomed  to  read,  along  with  the  inspired  writ- 
ings of  the  Old  Testament,  in  the  services  for 
public  worship.  The  Muratori  canon  shows  how 
easily  the  one  of  these  notions  passed  over  into 
the  other. 

At  the  same  time,  we  have  more  than  once 
noticed  the  fact  that  in  the  Christian  assemblages 
some  books  were  long  read,  other  than  those 
which  ultimately  attained  canonization.  And  men 
sometimes  speak  as  if,  at  the  point  of  our  history 
which  we  have  now  reached,  we  had  to  think  of 
a  grand  process  of  separation.  Men  write  as  if, 
in  the  canonization  of  these  writings  which  had 
grown  dear  to  the  Christian  heart,  a  great  mass  of 
other  writings  had  fallen  a  sacrifice  and  been  driven 
out  of  use  in  the  Christian  church.  But  in  this 
respect  it  is  easy  to  exaggerate.  As,  after  the 
year  i6o,  the  New  Testament  began  to  grow 
apace,  without  doubt  one  writing  and  another  was 
rejected  in  order  to  carry  out  the  distinction  of 
sacred  and  apostolic  writings  as  against  all  others. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  there  is  abundant  evidence 
that,  as  one  Christian  community  or  province  be- 
came cognizant  of  the  differing  practice  of  another, 
as  churches  compared  their  books  with  those  read 
in  public  worship  by  neighboring  churches,  the 
growing  canonization  had  the  appearance,  in  some 
cases  at  least,  of  an  enlargement  of  the  area  of 
the  literature  of  devotion  rather  than  that  of  a 
diminution  of  that  literature.  It  may  well  have 
been  some  time  after  the  outline  of   the   Canon 


138   CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST 

was  tolerably  fixed,  before  every  church  possessed 
every  writing  which  belonged  to  that  Canon.  We 
must  remember,  also,  that  the  books  would  nat- 
urally appear  as  separate  rolls  of  parchment,  or 
more  likely  of  papyrus.  Manuscripts  of  the  whole 
New  Testament,  which  we  think  of  as  a  continuous 
book,  in  a  few  rolls  at  the  most,  are  not  talked  of 
until  the  time  of  Constantine.  It  is  doubtful  if  any- 
where we  have  to  think  of  a  great  reduction  of  the 
number  of  books  as  a  thing  suddenly  resolved 
upon  and  authoritatively  carried  through.  In  the 
generation  in  which  the  notion  of  the  Canon  had 
been  growing  up  and  taking  possession  of  the 
minds  of  men,  the  question  of  the  limits  of  this 
body  of  literature,  to  which  sacred  character  was 
to  be  attributed,  had  also  been  gradually  settling 
itself.  We  have  not  to  think  of  the  abstract  notion 
of  the  Canon  as  being  first  fully  matured  and  then, 
in  this  matured  shape,  suddenly  applied  to  all  the 
literature  treasured  in  the  Christian  communities 
here  and  there.  The  contacts  of  the  churches 
one  with  another,  and  the  comparison  of  their 
mutual  practices,  had  already  done  away  with  the 
most  striking  differences.  The  debate  within 
the  church  touching  the  boundary  of  the  Canon 
continued  indeed  for  almost  two  hundred  years. 
But  it  was  a  debate  which  had  been  reduced  to 
very  narrow  compass.  It  touched,  after  this  time 
of  which  we  speak,  but  a  few  books,  and  those  not 
the  most  important  ones. 

That  the  final  boundary  line  of  the  Canon  fell 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 39 

somewhat  arbitrarily,  no  one  denies.  That  that 
line  failed  to  follow  absolutely  the  distinction  which 
it  was  supposed  to  register,  all  must  admit.  The 
men  supposed  themselves  to  be  operating  with  the 
principle  of  apostolicity.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they 
vindicated  that  which  had  vindicated  itself  as  of 
spiritual  worth  in  the  Christian  experience.  In  the 
large,  we  may  say  that  the  writings  which  had 
failed  to  vindicate  themselves  in  public  and  solemn 
use  as  of  spiritual  worth  were  not  put  out  of  the 
Canon.  They  never  got  into  the  Canon  to  any 
great  extent.  One  can  clearly  see,  on  the  evi- 
dence offered  by  our  own  New  Testament  itself, 
that  the  maxim  of  its  formation  has  not  been  to 
receive  as  little  as  possible.  Rather,  the  disposi- 
tion would  seem  to  have  been,  to  lose  nothing 
which  by  any  possibility  might  be  apostolic,  of 
all  those  writings  which  had  proved  themselves 
useful  to  edification  in  any  important  part  of 
the  church.  It  was  this  disposition  which  also 
inclined  men,  later,  to  take  an  unduly  favorable 
view  of  the  apostolicity  of  some  books  which  they 
canonized,  as,  for  example,  in  the  case  of  the 
Hebrews,  and  surely  in  the  case  of  Second  Peter 
as  well. 

And,  indeed,  the  Gospels  and  fragments  of  Gos- 
pels which  have  come  down  to  us  outside  of  the 
Canon  do  not  make  upon  us  the  impression  that  the 
class  to  which  they  belong,  even  if  we  possessed  it 
in  far  greater  fulness  than  we  do,  would  have  added 
much  to  our  knowledge  concerning  the  Gospel  of 


140        CLOSING    OF    THE   CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

Jesus.  The  fragments  of  the  Gospels  according 
to  the  Hebrews,  according  to  the  Egyptians,  ac- 
cording to  Peter,  are  either  very  meagre  in  their 
content,  or  they  show  a  tendency  to  interpretation 
of  their  subject  in  far  greater  measure  than  do 
the  canonical  Gospels.  The  Gospels  to  which  the 
preface  of  Luke  refers  were  not  put  out  of  the 
public  devotional  use.  They  never  got  into  that 
use  in  any  larger  way.  There  is  no  apocryphal 
Gospel  whose  wide  dissemination  can  be  proved. 
And  if  we  speak  of  letters,  we  must  own  that  the 
wandering  argumentation  of  First  Clement  and, 
still  more,  the  contentiousness  and  puerilities  of 
Barnabas,  have  but  little  of  that  immediateness  of 
religious  feeling  and  communication  which  is  so 
wonderful  in  Paul. 

Surely  we  must  marvel  at  the  spiritual  tact,  and 
appreciation  of  the  true  issue  which  was  involved, 
with  which  the  Christian  men  of  the  generation 
before  the  Canon  proceeded  in  the  choice  of  books 
which  should  be  pubHcly  read.  For  it  was  these 
men  who  left  relatively  little  for  the  later  genera- 
tion deliberately  to  reject.  The  makers  of  the 
New  Testament  in  the  final  and  authoritative  stage 
proceeded  not  radically,  but  very  conservatively. 
The  Canon,  as  it  was  finally  declared,  is  really  only 
the  codifying  and  legalizing  of  what  was  tradi- 
tional. Whatever  literature  was  read  in  the  lead- 
ing Christian  communities  from  Sunday  to  Sunday 
in  the  last  decades  of  the  second  century,  that, 
after  a  time,  men  came  to  regard  as  divine  Scrip- 


CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST        I4I 

ture,  being  led  up  to  that  idea  by  the  long  process 
which  we  have  reviewed.  That  high  authority 
which  they  found  this  literature,  for  inward  and 
spiritual  reasons,  to  possess,  they  soon  came  to 
conceive  in  outward  fashion,  and  to  explain  in 
the  manner  in  which  they  had  already  reasoned 
concerning  the  authority  of  the  Old  Testament. 
They  ascribed  it  to  an  oracular  inspiration  of 
the  book  itself.  This  was  the  idea  which  the 
men  of  that  generation,  probably  all  unconsciously, 
put  in  the  place  of  that  other  and  simpler  idea 
which  the  Christians  had  always  had — the  idea  of 
the  inspiration  and  authority  of  these  Christian 
books  as  drawn  from  the  Christ  whose  holy  spirit 
they  enshrined. 

But,  of  course,  when  once  the  Canon  had  been 
thus  conceived,  the  church  grew  sensitive  to  dif- 
ferences, and  more  eager  that  those  differences 
should  be  blotted  out.  One  might  leave  to  the 
individual  church  the  decision  as  to  what  was 
edifying  to  be  read.  That  decision  always  had 
been  left  to  the  individual  church.  But  one  could 
not  thus  leave  to  chance,  as  it  seemed,  the  decla- 
ration as  to  what  was  and  what  was  not  divine. 
The  men  did  not  see  that,  while  it  is  easy  to  make 
an  authoritative  declaration  concerning  the  apos- 
tolic origin  of  a  given  book,  or  concerning  any  simi- 
lar external  matter,  the  witness  of  the  divineness 
of  a  book  is,  after  all,  its  influence  upon  the  hearts 
and  lives  of  men.  Where  this  influence  is  present 
no  declaration  is  needed.     And  where  this  influence 


142        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANOxX    IN    THE    WEST 

is  absent  no  declaration  is  of  any  avail.  But  the 
formal  decision  of  questions  as  to  the  aposto- 
licity  of  this  book  or  that,  and  the  effort  to  coerce 
the  churches  to  acceptance  of  these  decisions, 
belong  to  a  period  long  subsequent  to  the  time  of 
which  we  now  speak. 

We  noted  the  fact  that  Clement,  the  representa- 
tive of  the  Alexandrine  church  about  the  year 
200,  shows  a  truer  appreciation  of  the  nature  of  the 
Canon  and  more  sense  for  its  history  than  do  his 
Roman  and  Latin-African  contemporaries.  His 
idea  of  the  meaning  of  inspiration  is  less  mechani- 
cal and  external.  The  central  body  of  literature 
which  he  deems  sacred  rays  out  at  the  edges  and 
its  spiritual  quality  passes  off  by  gradation  toward 
other  Christian  writings  than  those  which  became 
canonical,  and  even  toward  oracles  not  Christian 
at  all.  Moreover,  the  writings  which  to  him  are 
canonical  possess  the  spiritual  quality  in  vary- 
ing degrees.  They  are  therefore,  in  varying 
degree,  of  spiritual  import  to  their  readers.  This 
lack  of  sharpness  of  outline  and  of  legaHstic 
quality  remains  characteristic  of  the  canon  of 
the  Greek  church,  at  all  events  until  the  time  of 
Athanasius. 

The  sect  of  the  Alogoi,  in  Asia  Minor,  about 
the  year  180  or  190,  denied  the  authenticity  of  the 
Apocalypse.  They  disputed  the  doctrine  of  the 
Logos  in  the  Fourth  Gospel,  and  from  this  fact 
derived  their  name.  That  strenuous  opponent 
of    Montanism   in  the   Roman  church  about  the 


CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST        I43 

year  200,  the  Presbyter  Caius,  according  to 
Eusebius,  described  the  Apocalypse  as  a  forgery 
of  the  heretic  Cerinthus,  it  being  the  book  which, 
according  to  Caius,  was  most  in  favor  with  the 
Montanists.^  From  still  another  point  of  view  the 
Apocalypse  was  drawn  into  question.  It  seemed 
to  favor  the  chiliastic  doctrine,  of  the  thousand 
years'  reign  of  Christ  on  earth  before  the  general 
resurrection. 2  This  view  had  been  shared  by  Papias, 
and  was  not  uncommon  in  his  time.  Justin  ad- 
hered to  it ;  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian  argued  for  it. 
Caius  seems  to  have  been  the  first  who  vigorously 
assailed  it;  Origen  refuted  it.^  It  was  now  repu- 
diated. It  must  therefore,  in  the  judgment  of 
those  who  objected  to  it,  receive  no  countenance 
from  a  book  which  was  supposed  to  be  of  divine 
origin.  Or,  rather,  a  book  which  does  counte- 
nance this  doctrine  has  no  right  to  a  place  in  the 
collection  of  books  which  are  held  to  be  of  divine 
origin  and  authority.  In  general,  we  may  say 
that  the  Johannine  portion  of  the  Canon,  in  one 
or  another  of  its  fractions.  Gospel,  Apocalypse,  or 
Letters,  was  the  most  disputed  element  in  that 
very  portion  of  the  world,  Asia  Minor,  where 
John  was  held  to  have  lived  and  to  have  ended  his 
days.  These  protests  against  the  Apocalypse  do 
not  show  that  the  Canon  containing  that  writing 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  iii.  28.  2.  ^  Revelation  xx.  4. 

3  On  Chiliasm,  see  Harnack,  article  '*  Millennium,"  in  EncycL 
Brit.,  9th  ed.,  1883,  XVI.  p.  314  ft.  See  Dogmengeschichte,  ist  ed., 
Bd.  I,  p.  1 14,  and  note. 


144        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

was  not  yet  in  existence.  But  they  do  prove  that 
that  Canon  had  not  yet  been  so  long  in  existence 
and  in  authority  that  the  objection  to  one  or 
another  of  its  parts  seemed  monstrous.  Men  who 
had  witnessed  the  growth  of  the  Canon  had  no 
hesitation  in  subtracting  this  or  that  book  from  it 
if  they  saw  fit.  In  the  new  emphasis  upon  the 
Apostles,  such  writings  as  were  deemed  to  be  not 
apostoHcal  were  everywhere  to  be  removed  from 
use.  We  recall  the  episode  of  Serapion,  Bishop  of 
Antioch,  and  the  matter  of  the  use  of  the  Gospel 
according  to  Peter  in  the  church  at  Rhossus.^ 
The  bishop  withdrew  his  permission  of  the  use 
of  that  Gospel  when  he  discovered  that  it  con- 
tained heretical  doctrine.  He  does  indeed  say,  in 
his  letter,  that  the  church  has  no  tradition  of  any 
Gospel  according  to  Peter.  But  his  rejection  of 
the  book  is  not  based  upon  the  fact  that  he  has 
investigated  the  question  of  its  authorship.  He 
judges  it  heretical,  and  determines  its  authorship 
accordingly.  The  distinction  between  these  two 
points  of  view  is  one  at  which  the  men  of  that  age 
never  arrived.  They  did  not  realize  the  danger 
of  moving  in  a  circle.  They  did  not  perceive  the 
risk  of  determining  the  type  of  apostolic  doctrine 
from  writings  which  chanced  to  be  already  ac- 
knowledged as  those  of  Apostles,  and  then  of 
rejecting  other  writings  because  they  contained 
doctrinal  apprehensions  of  a  different  type. 
There  was  the  danger  that  they  might  accept  as 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  vi.  I2.  2-6. 


CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST        I45 

apostolic,  writings  which  were  much  used  and 
loved  in  the  Church,  if  only  these  writings  did  not 
diverge  too  widely  from  the  accepted  doctrinal 
type.  No  one  imagines  that  in  this  case  of  the 
Gospel  according  to  Peter  any  error  was  made. 
But  it  is  the  point  of  view  which  we  need  to 
note. 

A  similar  use  of  writings  other  than  those  which 
became  canonical  probably  went  on  for  some  time 
in  out-of-the-way  places.  Methodius  of  Olympus, 
the  great  opponent  of  the  Origenist  movement, 
about  the  year  300,  had  the  Apocalypse  of  Peter 
and  probably  also  Barnabas  and  the  Didache  in 
his  canon.  And  no  one  can  read  the  passages  in 
Eusebius  in  which  he  shows  such  zeal  for  the 
rejection  of  certain  books  without  inferring  that  in 
his  diocese  of  Caesarea  in  Palestine  the  effort  to 
compass  their  rejection  had  not  thus  far  been  alto- 
gether successful.^  In  general,  debates  concerning 
some  such  questions  lived  on  in  the  East  long  after 
they  had  died  out  in  the  West. 

Meantime,  however,  the  Greek  church  had  had 
in  Origen  its  greatest  ecclesiastical  writer  and  one 
of  the  greatest  theologians  of  all  ages.  Origen 
was  the  head  of  the  catechetical  school  in  Alex- 
andria, over  which  Clement  had  presided  at  an 
earlier  date.  His  position  with  reference  to  the 
Canon  is  interesting  in  itself,  and  of  great  impor- 
tance also  because  of  Origen's  influence  both  upon 
his  own  time  and  upon  the  next  succeeding  gen- 

1  See  Julicher,  Einleitung,  p.  323. 


146   CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST 

erations.  Unfortunately  many  of  his  works  are 
lost,  and  many  others  exist  only  in  unsatisfactory 
Latin  translations.  The  man  who  before  250  a.d. 
was  the  greatest  ornament  of  the  Greek  church, 
and  to  the  description  of  whose  life  and  work 
Eusebius  enthusiastically  devoted  the  greater  part 
of  the  sixth  book  of  his  Church  History,  the 
ecclesiastical  authorities  of  the  sixth  century  con- 
demned for  heresy  and,  through  the  destruction  of 
his  works,  did  everything  in  their  power  to  put  an 
end  to  his  influence. 

He  was  called  by  the  ancients  the  Adamantine, 
because  of  his  iron  diligence.  He  was  born  about 
the  year  185,  of  Christian  parents,  in  Alexandria. 
His  father,  Leonides,  was  his  earliest  instructor 
both  in  religion  and  in  philosophy.  He  enjoyed 
also  the  instruction  of  Pantsenus  and  of  Clement. 
His  father  died  the  martyr's  death  in  202,  and 
the  family  estates  were  confiscated.  Origen  was 
scarcely  restrained  from  giving  himself  up  to 
death  at  the  same  time  with  his  father.  He  was 
enabled  by  a  rich  woman  of  Alexandria  to  continue 
his  studies.  He  aided  himself  by  teaching.  Be- 
fore he  was  seventeen  years  old  he  was  an  instruc- 
tor in  the  school  for  catechumens.  In  the  year 
203  he  was  appointed  by  the  bishop  Demetrius 
to  succeed  Clement  as  the  head  of  that  school. 
Here  he  worked  and  studied  for  fifteen  years. 
Accomplished  in  the  Greek  philosophy,  he  won 
over  many  pagans  of  the  educated  class.  Held  back 
from  preferment,  as  he  conceived,  by  jealousies  in 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 4/ 

Alexandria,  he  allowed  himself,  in  the  year  231, 
to  be  consecrated  a  presbyter,  in  Caesarea,  upon 
one  of  his  journeys.  For  this  offence  against  dis- 
cipline he  fell  into  controversy  with  his  bishop. 
A  synod,  in  the  year  231  or  232,  removed  him 
from  the  presbyterate  and  banished  him  from 
Alexandria.  He  returned  to  Caesarea  and  estab- 
lished a  school  somewhat  similar  to  that  in 
Alexandria,  which  became  a  centre  of  Christian 
learning.  The  popular  exposition  of  the  Scrip- 
tures in  the  public  services  for  worship  was  a  task 
to  which  he  seems  to  have  given  himself  with 
enthusiasm.  From  the  persecution  under  Maxi- 
minus  Thrax  he  made  good  his  escape  to  Asia 
Minor.  But  in  the  persecution  under  Decius, 
while  imprisoned  in  Tyre,  he  suffered  injuries  from 
which  he  died,  probably  in  Tyre,  in  the  year  254. 
The  legend  asserts  that  he  wrote  six  thousand 
works.  Certain  it  is  that  his  literary  activity  was 
almost  unexampled.  But  many  of  the  writings 
which  entered  into  any  such  extravagant  enumera- 
tion must  have  been  sermons  and  addresses.  Even 
his  letters  were  for  a  time  preserved.  We  have 
alluded  to  his  apologetic  work.  Contra  Celsum. 
We  should  name  his  Principles,  which  we  gather 
was  his  great  dogmatic  work,  and  also  his  Stroma- 
teis,  a  book  in  which  it  appears  that  he  endeav- 
ored to  show  the  agreement  of  Christian  and 
philosophical  teaching.  But  his  incomparable 
service  was  as  an  exegete.  Whether  in  more  for- 
mal commentaries  or  in  his  homilies  for  popular 


148        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

instruction,  he  shows  himself  a  master  of  interpre- 
tation. He  set  an  example,  and  fostered  in  others 
a  zeal  for  the  study  of  the  Scripture  which  has 
rarely  been  surpassed.^ 

Within  the  Holy  Scriptures  Origen  knows  no 
difference  of  value  between  the  Old  Testament 
and  the  New.  He  writes  commentaries  upon 
Matthew,  John,  and  Romans  as  he  writes  upon 
Exodus  and  Leviticus.  Of  his  mode  of  thought 
one  sentence  may  serve  for  an  example,  "  It  is 
ours  to  study  day  and  night  the  law  of  the  Lord, 
and  that  not  only  in  the  new  words  of  the  Gospels 
and  of  the  Apostles  and  of  their  revelation,  but 
as  well  in  the  ancient  writings  of  the  Law,  which 
had  the  shadow  of  good  things  to  come,  and  in 
the  corresponding  testimony  of  the  Prophets." 
All  are  inspired  books  and  of  infallible  truth.  It 
makes  no  difference  for  Origen's  argument  whether 
his  proof  texts  come  from  the  Old  Testament  or 
from  the  New.  He  often  uses  for  his  Canon  the 
title.  The  New  Testament,  in  contradistinction 
from  the  Old.  It  is  possible  that  in  this  use  of 
the  title  by  Origen  we  have  the  first  unquestion- 
able application  of  it  to  the  writings,  as  such,  and 
that  the  phrase  as  it  stands  in  Clement  and  the 
Antimontanist  still  refers  to  the  new  dispensation 
under  Jesus,  including,  of  course,  the  literature  of 
that  new  dispensation. 

That  there  are  but  four  Gospels  to  be  acknowl- 
edged is  clearer  to  Origen  than   it  had  been   to 

1  Eusebius,  H.  E.  vi.  2.  3,  8,  and  especially  16  and  19. 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 49 

Clement,  and  he  has  but  one  Apocalypse.^  He 
says  that  the  New  Testament  has  place  for  apos- 
tolic writings  only.  Hence  Hermas  is  not  Scrip- 
ture although  it  is  revelation.  He  has  fourteen 
letters  of  Paul,  that  is,  he  assigns  the  Hebrews  to 
Paul.  Yet  he  himself,  in  other  places,  expresses 
doubt  about  the  Pauline  authorship  of  the  book. 
In  one  place  he  says  of  it  that  its  author  is  known 
only  to  God.  It  is  with  him  a  favorite  book.^  He 
has  all  seven  of  the  catholic  Epistles,  but  speaks 
once  of  the  "  so-called  Epistle  of  Jude."  He  knows 
that  five  out  of  the  seven,  namely,  all  except  First 
Peter  and  First  John,  are  not  extensively  in  use, 
and  in  some  places  are  rejected.  He  says,  "What 
but  the  judgment  of  the  ancients  can  decide  con- 
cerning a  work  wearing  the  name  of  an  Apostle 
and  not  discredited  by  heretical  tendencies  ? " 
Accordingly  he  arranges  all  the  works  which 
come  within  the  compass  of  his  discussion  in  three 
classes,  namely,  those  which  are  everywhere  ac- 
cepted, those  everywhere  rejected,  and  those 
which  are  still  in  doubt.^  Rejected  are  such 
books  as  the  Gospel  according  to  the  Egyp- 
tians, the  Gospel  which  is  in  use  among  the 
adherents  of  Basilides,  and  the  Gospel  of  the 
Twelve.  Doubtful  are  Second  Peter,  Second  and 
Third  John,  and  probably  also  James  and  Jude. 
Sometimes  it  seems  as  if  he  would  put  Hermas 

^  Eusebius,  //.  E.  vi.  25.  3  and  4;   and  vi.  26.  2. 
2  Eusebius,  H.  E.  vi.  25.  11. 
'  Eusebius  vi.  25.  3-14. 


150        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

in  this  class.  Unequivocally  acknowledged  are,  of 
course,  the  four  Gospels,  the  Acts,  thirteen  letters 
of  Paul,  and  the  Hebrews,  though  more  often  he 
says  simply  fourteen  letters  of  Paul.  Finally, 
in  a  statement  which  very  much  surprises  us,  he 
says  that  the  Apocalypse  of  John  belongs  also 
in  this  class.  And  after  all  this  classification  one 
still  finds  Barnabas  cited  as  a  cathoHc  letter, 
Clement  of  Rome  in  high  honor,  and  a  passage 
from  the  Didach^  quoted  as  teaching  of  the  Holy 
Scripture. 

The  Latin  church,  with  its  two  foci  at  Rome 
and  Carthage,  possessed  no  man  who  for  learning 
and  insight  was  to  be  mentioned  with  Origen,  in 
the  period  of  which  we  speak.  No  man  in  the 
West  showed  a  like  interest  in  the  history  of 
the  Canon  or  like  appreciation  of  the  fact  that 
the  Canon  had  a  history.  No  man  in  the  West 
showed  a  like  knowledge  of  the  actual  state  of 
things  as  it  existed  in  different  communities,  or  a 
like  sense  of  the  larger  meaning  of  the  New 
Testament. 

Hippolytus  was  the  bishop  of  a  schismatic  com- 
munity of  the  Romans  who,  in  the  year  235,  with 
the  Roman  bishop  Pontianus,  was  deported  to 
Sardinia,  and  probably  died  there  in  the  mines. 
He  was  the  author  of  several  works  of  importance. 
He  wrote  still  in  Greek,  and  gives  us  a  fair  notion 
of  his  Canon.  It  is  that  of  Irenaeus  and  of  the 
Muratori  Fragment,  except  that  Hermas  and  the 

1  Origen,  de  Princip.  iii.  2.  7. 


CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN   THE   WEST        I51 

Apocalypse  of  Peter  have  disappeared  altogether. 
The  Apocalypse  of  John,  on  the  other  hand,  is  to 
him  a  much  loved  book  and  he  defends  it  against 
Caius.  He  has  but  thirteen  letters  of  Paul.  The 
Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  he  knows,  but  does 
not  use  it  as  Scripture.  Quite  as  conservative 
is  Cyprian;  and  Cyprian's  writings,  even  more 
than  those  of  Hippolytus,  are  of  such  a  char- 
acter as  to  give  us  a  fair  knowledge  of  the  CLLn^a 
as  it  existed  in  his  mind.  Next  after  Tertullian 
he  was  perhaps  the  most  influential  man  in  the 
development  of  the  mode  of  thought  and  speech 
characteristic  of  the  Roman  Catholic  church. 
Born  in  Carthage,  in  the  early  years  of  the  third 
century,  of  a  family  of  some  distinction,  he  be- 
came a  teacher  of  rhetoric  in  Carthage.  He 
was  baptized  in  the  year  246.  A  few  months 
thereafter  he  was  consecrated  priest.  In  the  year 
248  he  was  made  bishop  of  Carthage.  He  es- 
caped the  earlier  stages  of  the  Decian  persecution 
and  set  a  shining  example  in  the  discipline  of  the 
community  in  that  trying  time,  and  in  the  organi- 
zation of  his  church  for  charity  toward  the  heathen 
in  the  period  of  the  plague.  He  was  in  continual 
conflict  in  the  church,  however,  both  with  men  who, 
like  FeHcissimus,  judged  the  conduct  of  those  who 
had  lapsed  during  the  persecution  too  leniently, 
as  Cyprian  deemed,  and  as  well,  with  men  like 
Novatian,  who  judged  the  lapsed  with  too  great 
severity.  Cyprian  was  excommunicated  by  the 
Roman  bishop    Stephen,   because  he   denied  the 


152        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

validity  of  heretical  baptism.  He  in  turn  de- 
nounced Stephen,  and  in  a  synod  at  Carthage 
in  256  A.D.  he  solemnly  declared  that  the  Roman 
bishop  had  no  primacy  over  the  other  bishops. 
He  was  beheaded  in  a  new  outbreak  of  the  perse- 
cution under  Valerian  in  258  a.d.  He  was  a  man 
less  original  than  Tertullian,  but  of  better  balance. 
He  was  a  pastor  and  teacher  and  practical  execu- 
tive rather  than  a  theologian.  Some  of  his  trac- 
tates, and  eighty-one  letters,  have  come  down  to  us, 
revealing  a  beautiful  character  and  a  great  per- 
sonal force.  The  titles  of  some  of  these  little 
works  are  suggestive.  They  touch  upon  the  treat- 
ment of  the  lapsed,  upon  the  unity  of  the  church, 
upon  the  Lord's  Supper,  upon  good  works  and 
almsgiving,  upon  the  fact  that  Christians,  as  well 
as  heathen,  died  in  the  plague,  upon  the  accusation 
that  the  atheism  of  the  Christians  was  the  cause 
of  the  evils  of  the  time,  upon  fearlessness  in  face 
of  martyrdom.  The  Apocalypse  was  in  high 
honor  with  him.  The  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  he 
never  mentions.  Of  the  seven  catholic  Epistles 
he  has  only  two,  namely.  First  Peter  and  First 
John.i 

In  general,  for  the  whole  Latin  church,  and  so 
late  as  395  a.d.,  we  may  say  that  only  Lucifer 
of  Cagliari  desired  to  exclude  the  Apocalypse. 
And  he  had  been  long  in  banishment  in  the  East, 
where  he  had  learned  of  the  oriental  repudiation 

1  See  especially,  the  quotations  of  Scripture  in  Cyprian's  De 
Exhort,  Martyrii. 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 53 

of  the  book.  It  was  obvious  that  despite  the  pro- 
test of  the  East,  the  West  would  never  give  up  the 
book.  On  the  other  hand,  as  regards  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews,  the  eastern  churches  had  given  it 
a  secure  place,  in  some  cases,  though  by  no  means 
in  all,  under  the  direct  assertion  that  it  was  the 
work  of  Paul.  But  the  Latin  church  during  this 
period  either  did  not  know  the  book  or  deemed 
it  not  the  work  of  Paul.  Some  western  writers 
left  the  question  of  its  authorship  an  open  one, 
or  suggested  that  Barnabas  might  have  written 
the  book.  But  in  the  West,  more  than  in  the 
East,  uncertainty  concerning  the  authorship  of 
a  book  had  weight  to  keep  it  out  of  the  Canon, 
even  though  the  content  of  the  book  might  be 
approved.  In  general  one  may  say  that  where  the 
Apocalypse  was  accepted  the  Hebrews  was  re- 
jected, and  conversely  where  the  Hebrews  was 
accepted  the  Apocalypse  was  in  dispute.  But  to 
this  statement  one  must  record  so  distinguished 
an  exception  as  that  of  Origen,  alluded  to  above. 
The  number  of  the  catholic  Epistles  varies  and 
grows  but  slowly.  First  John  and  First  Peter  are 
everywhere  known.  But  the  other  five  Epistles 
which  we  have  seen  so  largely  current  in  the  East 
made  slower  progress  in  the  West.  And  before 
the  fourth  century  there  is  no  evidence  in  the 
Latin  church  for  the  presence  of  Second  Peter 
at  all. 

The  Latin  church  had  stronger  feeling  than  had 
the  Greek  for  the  necessity  of  a  sharp  outline  of 


154   CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST 

the  Canon.  It  was  less  conscious  than  was  the 
Greek  church  of  the  gradation  of  spiritual  quality 
among  the  books  which  it  accepted.  It  was  more 
often  disposed  to  declare  that  the  books  which  it 
rejected  possessed  no  spiritual  quality  whatever. 
Classifications  like  that  of  Origen  are  almost  never 
heard  of.  To  these  men  a  book  is  either  inspired 
or  else  it  is  not  inspired.  It  is  either  sacred  or 
else  it  is  profane.  And  if  it  has  falsely  claimed 
the  sacred  quaUty,  then  it  is  even  worse  than  other 
profane  books.  A  book  is  either  Scripture,  holy 
and  beneficent,  or  else  it  is  not  Scripture,  and  hence 
indifferent,  or  even  injurious.  Hilary  of  Poictiers, 
who  died  in  366  a.d.,  speaks  out  the  prevailing 
spirit  of  the  Latin  church  of  his  time  when  he 
says,  "  What  is  not  in  the  Book,  of  that  we  should 
take  no  notice  whatever."  ^  And  yet  Hilary  him- 
self never  mentions  the  five  cathoUc  Epistles  which 
we  have  seen  so  much  in  dispute.  But  he  cannot 
have  been  ignorant  that  many  others  counted  these 
Epistles  as  belonging  to  the  Book. 

The  closing  of  the  Canon  in  the  West  falls  after 
the  year  400.  Rufinus  of  Aquileia,  who  died  in 
410,  Jerome  who  died  in  420,  and  Augustine  who 
died  in  430,  are  the  men  through  whom  the  end  of 
the  discussion  is  chronicled,  or  even  in  some  small 
measure  brought  to  pass.  Rufinus  is  the  only  man 
in  the  West  who  even  seems  to  have  been  aware 
that  Origen  had  divided  the  literature  into  three 
classes.     But  to  Rufinus  that  division  is  purely  a 

1  Jiilicher,  Einleiiung,  p.  335. 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 55 

matter  of  antiquarian  interest.  To  his  mind  all 
twenty-seven  of  our  books  would  belong  beyond 
question  to  Origen's  first  class,  namely,  that  of  the 
books  which  no  one  disputes. 

Jerome  was  a  man  whose  knowledge  of  the  lit- 
erature of  the  church  was  considerable  and  whose 
travels  had  been  extensive.  His  knowledge  of 
Greek  was  good ;  and  such  knowledge  was  some- 
what rare  in  the  West  in  his  day.  His  knowledge 
of  Hebrew  was  fair ;  and  such  knowledge,  among 
Christians,  was  then  even  more  rare.  He  belonged 
in  a  way  to  both  East  and  West.  He  was  born  in 
Dalmatia,  but  educated  in  Rome.  He  had  lived 
in  Trier,  in  Germany,  and  was  for  years  in  a  mon- 
astery in  Bethlehem.  Long  occupied  with  secular 
studies,  he  later  gave  himself  to  a  harsh  ascetic 
life.  He  was  a  voluminous  commentator.  It  is 
not  a  strong  showing  which  his  learning  makes 
when  compared  with  the  illustrious  achievement 
of  Origen.  If  some  one  in  Jerome's  day  and 
with  Jerome's  advantages  had  done  thoroughly 
the  thing  which  he,  in  his  Lives  of  Famous  Men, 
has  done  in  somewhat  untrustworthy  fashion,  he 
would  have  placed  the  world  under  obHgation.  The 
attempt  was  to  preserve  the  main  facts  touching 
the  biography  of  many  Christian  leaders.  It  is  pain- 
ful to  find  that  many  of  Jerome's  statements  are 
not  correct.  The  material  from  which  we  might 
have  corrected  those  statements  has  perished  for- 
ever. His  controversial  works  reveal  such  self- 
consciousness  and  irritable  temper  that  we  do  not 


156   CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST 

wonder  that  the  sharpness  of  his  speech  exposed 
him  and  his  Httle  monastic  circle,  more  than  once, 
to  personal  violence. 

But  Jerome's  title  to  immortality  is  his  contribu- 
tion to  the  translation  into  Latin  of  the  Scriptures, 
both  of  the  Old  and  of  the  New  Testaments.  The 
revision  of  the  existing  translation,  the  so-called 
Itala,  was  committed  to  him  by  Damasus  in  382 
A.D.  Jerome's  version  is  the  foundation  of  the 
Vulgate,  the  authorized  Latin  Bible  in  the  Roman 
church.  Jerome  knew  that  certain  books  had  been 
long  in  dispute.  He  says  of  Second  Peter  and 
Jude  that  many  rejected  these  books ;  of  James 
that  it  was  alleged  to  have  been  written  in  the 
Apostle's  name;  and  of  Second  and  Third  John 
that  many  deemed  them  to  have  been  written 
by  the  presbyter.  He  had  learned  in  his  travels 
that  Hermas  and  Clement  were  much  loved  in 
certain  portions  of  the  East.  He  himself  was 
deeply  interested  in  the  Gospel  according  to  the 
Hebrews.  He  certainly  knew  the  grounds  which 
Dionysius  had  alleged  against  the  Johannine 
authorship  of  the  Apocalypse.  He  must  have 
known  that  a  good  part  of  the  world  had  never 
believed  that  Hebrews  was  written  by  Paul.  But, 
as  conversant  with  the  usage  of  both  churches,  he 
settled  the  long  dispute  concerning  Hebrews  and 
the  Apocalypse  by  the  method  of  the  inclusion  of 
both.  Apostohc  writings  alone,  he  repeatedly 
asserts,  are  to  be  canonized.  The  inference  is 
that,  in  the  case  of  all  the  disputed  books,  he  him- 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 5/ 

self  accepts  the  tradition  which  assigns  them  to 
the  Apostles  named. 

Jerome  found  within  the  church  divergent  tradi- 
tions concerning  the  Canon  of  the  Old  Testament. 
In  the  synagogue  also  in  his  time,  Palestinian  Jews 
held  to  the  Canon  of  thirty-nine  books  with  which 
we  are  famiUar.  Alexandrine  Jews  included  many 
books  besides,  as  the  Septuagint  translators  had 
done.  The  Christian  use  of  the  Old  Testament 
was,  in  the  Gentile  Christian  churches,  prevailingly 
on  the  side  of  this  larger,  so-called  Alexandrine, 
Canon.  Jerome  protested  against  the  use  of  the 
Canon  of  the  Seventy.  But,  by  the  influence  of 
Augustine,  the  additional  books  which  we  know  as 
the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha  were  admitted  to 
the  Vulgate  and  appear  in  Roman  Catholic  Bibles. 
They  appear  in  many  versions  and  editions  in 
Protestant  countries  also  to  this  day,  although  the 
Protestant  bodies  in  the  main  made  a  point  of 
rejecting  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha  and  of  re- 
turning to  the  Palestinian  Canon  for  which  Jerome 
had  stood.  The  more  impressive  therefore,  when 
we  consider  this  attitude  of  Jerome  and  of  Augus- 
tine toward  the  Old  Testament  Apocrypha,  is  the 
fact  that  there  was  no  divergence  of  opinion  con- 
cerning any  New  Testament  Apocrypha.  None 
appeared  in  the  Vulgate.  There  was  no  body  of 
dissentient  opinion  concerning  the  compass  of  the 
New  Testament  Canon  of  which  Jerome  or  Augus- 
tine needed  to  take  note.  There  was  no  single 
New  Testamentapocryphal  book  which  they  deemed 


158        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN   THE    WEST 

it  advisable  to  translate  and  append  to  the  collec- 
tion, even  with  the  statement  that  it  was  apocry- 
phal. So  absolute  was  the  unanimity  concerning 
the  outline  of  the  Christian  Canon  which  had  been 
attained. 

Few  men  who  have  borne  the  Christian  name 
have  appealed  more  powerfully  to  the  imagination 
of  all  generations  than  has  Augustine.  Born  at 
Tagaste  in  Numidia  in  353  a.d.,  of  a  pagan 
father  and  of  a  saintly  mother,  a  youth  of  ill-regu- 
lated ambitions,  and  of  unbridled  lusts,  a  man  of 
power  and  persuasion  in  the  career  which  he  had 
chosen,  he  sought  rest  in  the  violence  of  Manichaean 
self-discipline  and  light  in  the  secret  doctrines  of 
that  sect.  Disappointment  and  despair  taking 
possession  of  him,  he  rescued  himself  temporarily 
through  the  Neoplatonic  philosophy.  In  Milan,  in 
pursuit  of  his  calling,  he  came  under  the  influence 
of  Ambrose,andonEaster  eve,  387  A.D.jWasbaptized 
along  with  his  natural  son,  Adeodatus.  Returning 
by  way  of  Rome  to  his  native  city,  he  was  chosen, 
in  391,  against  his  will,  a  presbyter  by  the  com- 
munity of  Hippo  Regius.  In  395  a.d.  Valerius, 
the  Bishop  of  Hippo,  had  him  elected  his  own 
coadjutor.  From  that  time  it  may  be  said  that 
Augustine  ruled  in  the  might  of  his  genius  the 
whole  African  church.  He  illustrated  in  himself 
that  glorious  phrase  of  his  Confessions,  **  Thou, 
O  God,  has  made  us  for  Thyself,  and  our  hearts 
are  restless  till  they  find  their  rest  in  Thee."  If 
ever  a  man  vindicated  his  own  prayer,  it  was  he ; 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 59 

"  Give,  O  God,  what  Thou  askest,  and  then  ask 
what  Thou  wilt."  He  dedicated  all  his  strength 
and  charm  to  the  new  life  which  opened  to  him 
after  his  conversion.  There  were  few  things  which 
transpired  in  the  Christian  world  within  the  thirty- 
years  of  his  ceaseless  activity  which  did  not  in  some 
way  bear  his  stamp.  A  man  of  affairs  as  truly  as  a 
thinker,  a  great  theologian  as  also  a  consummate 
administrator  and  a  genuine  saint,  he  was  a  good 
lover,  a  hard  fighter,  a  man  of  astonishing  prevision, 
and  consumed  with  zeal  for  the  kingdom  of  Christ, 
that  ''  City  of  God  "  of  which  he  wrote.  He  died 
in  430  A.D.,  in  his  own  see  of  Hippo,  during  the 
siege  of  the  city  by  the  Vandal  hordes.  Deepest 
of  mystics,  he  was  yet  one  of  the  most  relentless 
of  controversialists  and  one  of  the  most  practical  of 
ecclesiastics.  His  derivation  of  the  state  from  the 
might  of  sin  among  men,  and  his  uncompromising 
demand  for  the  subjection  of  the  state  to  the 
church,  was  the  theoretical  basis  for  the  mediaeval 
apprehension  of  the  relation  of  the  two,  and  in  no 
small  part  the  dogmatic  foundation  of  the  claims 
of  the  papacy.  But  no  less,  his  antithesis  of 
nature  and  grace,  his  emphasis  upon  election,  his 
doubt  of  free  will,  his  assertion  of  salvation  by 
faith  and  not  by  works,  made  him  almost  the  typi- 
cal predecessor  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  forerunner 
of  the  Reformation,  and  saint  of  Protestantism 
as  well. 

His  contribution  to  the  matter  of  the  Canon  is 
perfectly  characteristic.     The  great  debate  of  so 


l60        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    WEST 

many  generations  was  practically  over.  But  it 
remained  for  some  one  to  say  that  it  was  over. 
It  remained  that  some  one  should  solemnly  declare 
what  the  church  was  to  regard  as  its  sacred  body 
of  New  Testament  writings  from  that  day  forth. 
It  was  Augustine  who,  in  three  provincial  synods, 
cast  his  weight  for  that  which  Pope  Damasus  had 
suggested  in  382,  and  outlined  that  which  Pope 
Gelasius  did  for  western  Christendom  in  the  year 
492.  These  synods,  under  the  influence  of  Augus- 
tine, were  held,  one  of  them  in  Hippo  in  393,  one 
in  Carthage  in  397,  and  again  the  last  of  them  in 
Carthage  in  419  a.d.  They  all  of  them  passed  can- 
ons ordaining  that  the  twenty-seven  books  which 
we  know  should  constitute  the  Christian  Scripture, 
the  oracles  of  God,  and  charter  of  the  faith  under 
the  new  covenant.  The  only  difference  to  be 
noted  in  these  decrees  is  that,  in  those  of  393  and 
397,  the  phrase  runs,  ''  Thirteen  letters  of  Paul  and 
the  letter  to  the  Hebrews,  by  the  same,"  while 
the  decree  of  419  reads  simply  "Fourteen  letters 
of  Paul."  In  this  the  synod  of  419  had  but  fol- 
lowed the  example  of  Rome.  For  in  a  letter  of 
Innocent  I  to  the  Bishop  of  Toulouse,  in  the  year 
405,  twenty-seven  books  of  the  New  Testament 
were  cited,  fourteen  of  them  being  letters  of  Paul. 
In  the  same  letter  of  Innocent  and  in  the  three 
African  decrees,  three  letters  of  John  are  cited, 
showing  that  the  attempt  which  Damasus  had 
made  in  382  to  assign  First  John  and  the  Gospel 
to  the  Apostle,  and  Second  and  Third  John,  with 


CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN   THE   WEST        l6l 

the   Apocalypse,   to   that  illusory  personage,   the 
Presbyter,  had  failed. 

Twenty-seven  books,  no  more,  and  no  less,  is 
henceforth  the  watchword  throughout  the  Latin 
church.  That  same  letter  of  Innocent  of  the  year 
405,  after  citing  by  name  the  principal  rejected 
books,  says  of  them  that  they  were  not  only  to  be 
excluded  from  the  sacred  Canon,  but  they  were 
formally  to  be  condemned  and  the  faithful  warned 
against  them.  The  authority  of  Augustine  in  the 
occidental  church  was  immense,  and  all  serious 
resistance  from  this  time  forth  ceased. 

These  canons  put  forth  under  Augustine  are 
the  first  general  decrees  touching  the  matter  in 
the  Occident.  They  are  the  first  formal  decrees 
concerning  the  Canon  in  the  church  at  all,  if  we 
except  a  canon  of  the  Council  of  Laodicea,  as- 
signed to  the  year  363.  But  this  canon  of  Laodi- 
cea is  sharply  disputed,  and  we  shall  speak  of 
it  in  another  place.  One  curious  and  confirmatory 
exception  to  the  uniformity  which  henceforth  pre- 
vails in  the  West  may,  however,  be  cited.  The 
Goths  and  Visigoths  had  learned  their  Christianity 
from  missionaries  of  the  Greek  church.  They 
were  oriental  Bibles,  or  translations  of  Bibles  out 
of  the  Orient,  which  these  hordes,  in  so  far  as 
they  were  Christian,  brought  with  them  in  their 
conquering  invasions  of  France  and  Spain.  These 
Bibles,  of  course,  had  no  Apocalypse.  And  Span- 
ish synods  after  the  year  600  struggled  against 
those  who  denied  the  Apocalypse.^ 

M  1  Jiilicher,  Einleilung,  p.  340. 


1 62   CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST 

Directly,  and  by  formal  utterance  of  the  Roman 
pontiff  on  behalf  of  all  the  world  which  acknowl- 
edged the  leadership  of  Rome,  the  Canon  was 
closed  by  the  decree  of  Gelasius,  "  De  libris  recipi- 
endis  et  non  recipiendis."  This  phrase  is  so  inter- 
esting in  itself,  and  is  so  closely  parallel  to  the 
phrase  which  introduces  the  famous  "  Index  libro- 
rum  prohibitorum,"  the  list  of  forbidden  books, 
throughout  all  the  history  of  the  papacy,  that  it  is 
impressive  to  remember  that  the  phrase  first  occurs, 
so  far  as  we  know,  in  this  formal  fashion,  in  a  de- 
cree concerning  books  which  are  to  be  regarded  as 
canonical  New  Testament,  and  concerning  those 
which,  not  being  thus  regarded,  the  faithful  are 
warned  against.  Gelasius  was  pope  from  492  to 
496,  A.D.  We  do  not  know  more  nearly  the  year 
of  his  decree.  The  list  rested  indeed  upon  that  of 
Damasus  of  the  year  382,  and  it  was  repeated 
by  Hormisdas,  who  was  pope  from  514  to  523. 
But  there  is  no  change  except  in  the  order  of  a 
few  books.  The  Gelasian  index  of  books  pro- 
hibited included  the  Gospel  according  to  Peter, 
Hermas,  the  so-called  Apostolic  Constitutions,  and 
some  books  which  since  that  time  have  altogether 
disappeared. 

After  this  time  in  the  West,  not  only  does  the 
discussion  cease  but  the  remembrance  of  it  van- 
ishes. The  sense  for  the  true  history  of  the  Canon, 
the  realization  of  the  meaning  of  it  and  of  the 
long  struggle  through  which  it  had  passed,  grad- 
ually disappears.     The  New  Testament  was  there. 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  WEST    1 63 

Not  a  voice  was  raised  to  say  but  that  it  had 
always  been  there,  and  had  always  been  just  what 
it  now  was.  Usage  had  become  unvarying.  The 
church  had  spoken.  And  so  passed  a  thousand 
years. 


LECTURE   V 

THE  CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE 
EAST.  THE  RENAISSANCE  AND  THE 
REFORMATION 


LECTURE   V 

THE  CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE 
EAST.  THE  RENAISSANCE  AND  THE 
REFORMATION 

We  spoke  in  the  last  lecture  of  the  Alexandrine 
view  of  the  Canon.  We  endeavored  to  define  the 
position  of  the  greatest  of  Alexandrine  teachers, 
Origen.  We  noted  his  division  of  the  material 
under  discussion  into  three  classes.  There  was, 
firstly,  the  group  of  books  acknowledged  by  all 
in  the  Christian  communities  as  sacred  Scripture. 
Secondly,  there  was  the  group  of  books  repudiated 
by  all.  And,  finally,  there  was  the  class  of  writ- 
ings which  Origen  knew  to  be  still  in  dispute.  We 
said  that  in  this  distinction,  and  in  Origan's  whole 
handling  of  the  matter,  there  survived  far  more  of 
the  true  historic  sense  about  the  New  Testament 
than  we  should  have  found  at  that  same  period  any- 
where in  the  western  world.  This  historic  sense 
persists  in  no  small  measure  in  what  Eusebius  has 
to  say  touching  the  Canon.  And  Eusebius  writes 
more  than  two  generations  after  Origen. 

The  Father  of  Church  History,  as  he  has  often 
been  called,  Eusebius  stands  at  the  end  of  an  era 
in  the  life  of  the  Christian  movement.  He  wit- 
nessed  the  new  epoch  which  was    made   by  the 

167 


l68        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN   THE    EAST 

conversion  of  Constantine  and  the  elevation  of 
Christianity  to  a  position  of  supreme  power  as  the 
religion  of  the  state.  He  himself  lived  through 
that  transition,  the  greatest  transformation  which 
the  outward  relations  of  the  church  could  possibly 
have  undergone.  It  was  a  greater  external  change 
than  the  men  of  the  previous  generation  would  have 
dared  to  look  forward  to.  And  there  followed  after 
it,  speedily,  a  change  in  the  spirit  of  the  institution 
as  well. 

Origen  also  had  stood  at  the  end  of  an  old 
period,  or,  rather,  just  over  the  boundary  of  a  new 
one.  Origen  also  looked  back  upon  a  momentous 
transition  which  immediately  antedated  his  own 
work.  Indeed,  when  we  reflect,  we  must  say  that 
the  transformation  of  the  Christian  institution 
which  Origen  in  large  measure  registered,  had  im- 
measurably greater  spiritual  significance  than  had 
that  whole  dramatic  change  which  the  Emperor 
with  such  pomp  inaugurated,  and  which  Eusebius, 
in  the  last  books  of  his  History  and  in  his  Life  of 
Constantine,  with  some  obsequiousness  records. 
We  are  not  quite  sure  that  Origen  himself  appre- 
ciated, in  all  the  breadth  of  its  meaning,  the  change 
to  which  his  own  works  bear  such  overwhelming 
testimony.  It  is  not  altogether  clear  that  he  real- 
ized how  different  was  the  Christianity  in  which  he 
lived  and  moved  from  the  religion  of  Christ  and  of 
the  Apostles.  And  it  is  quite  certain  that  Euse- 
bius and  his  contemporaries  regarded  the  acknowl- 
edgment  of    Christianity   by   the   state,   and    the 


CLOSING   OF   THE    CANON    IN   THE    EAST         169 

appropriation  of  the  state  by  Christianity,  as  by 
far  the  most  momentous  event  in  Christian  history. 
But  to  us  it  seems  otherwise. 

The  alteration  in  the  status  of  Christianity  which 
took  place  in  the  first  quarter  of  the  fourth  century 
was  indeed  a  stupendous  one.  But  it  was,  for  the 
present,  at  any  rate,  an  alteration  only  in  status. 
It  was  an  alteration,  primarily,  only  in  the  condi- 
tions of  the  Christian  life  and  thought  and  work. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  change  which  passed  over 
Christendom  in  the  last  two  decades  of  the  second 
century  was  a  change  not  merely  in  status,  but  in 
nature.  It  was  nothing  less  than  the  metamor- 
phosis of  Christianity  itself.  The  contrast  between 
the  despised  and  persecuted  church  of  the  cata- 
combs and  that  church  whose  bishops  were  the 
chosen  advisers  of  the  master  of  the  world,  and 
scarcely  forbore  to  sit  with  him  upon  the  throne, 
was  indeed  a  great  one.  The  change  was  accom- 
plished with  dramatic  suddenness.  It  had  all  the 
paraphernalia  which  make  such  events  impressive. 
But  certainly  the  gulf  which  separated  primitive 
Christianity,  the  original  unorganized  personal  en- 
thusiasm and  inspiration,  from  that  superb  and 
world-subduing  organization  which  we  know  as 
the  catholic  church,  and  which  in  all  of  its  dis- 
tinctive principles  was  present  at  the  beginning  of 
the  third  century,  was  greater  still.  That  change 
too  had  been  long  preparing.  It  also  came,  at  the 
last,  or  seemed  to  come,  with  startHng  suddenness. 
It  came  almost  as  crystallization  happens  when  one 


I/O    CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST 

jars  a  vessel  in  which  a  solution  has  been  slowly 
coming  to  the  saturation-point.  One  moment  all 
is  transparent  fluid,  and  the  next,  there  are  those 
wonderful  forms  as  hard  as  adamant  and  as  per- 
manent as  the  elements  which  make  the  earth. 

A  simple  popular  movement,  with  a  thousand 
centres,  and  under  natural  forms  of  voluntary 
leadership,  is  far  removed  from  that  compact 
organization  which  conceded  the  supremacy  of 
bishops  who,  to  all  intents  and  purposes,  were  mon- 
archs  clothed  in  the  authority  of  Christ  and  God. 
Men  whose  bond  of  union  was  the  sustaining  of  a 
moral  discipline,  and  who  found  themselves  in 
the  world  of  culture  as  best  they  could,  were  in  far 
different  case  from  those  whose  tie  was  a  confes- 
sion, the  binding  formulary  of  a  faith  once  for  all 
delivered  to  the  saints.  A  church  whose  author- 
ity was  Christ  alone,  and  which  cherished  writings 
for  no  other  reason  than  that  those  writings  en- 
shrined its  Christ,  is  sharply  contrasted  with  one 
which  found  infallible  authority  in  sacred  apostolic 
documents,  and  had  a  Canon  of  inspired  Scripture 
where  it  once  had  only  the  spirit  of  its  Lord.  The 
metamorphosis  which  in  these  three  sentences  has 
been  described  is  surely  far  more  significant  than 
that  other.  The  fundamental  difference  in  char- 
acter between  primitive  Christianity  and  the  catho- 
lic church  is  of  incomparably  greater  consequence 
than  the  mere  contrast  in  the  outward  fortunes  of 
the  church  which  indeed  was,  at  one  moment, 
trampled  under  the  feet  of  every  provincial  gov- 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST    I/I 

ernor,   and    upon    whose   brow,  in   the   next,  the 
Emperor  himself    had  set  the  crown.     That  first 
change  touched  the  essence  of  the  matter.     This 
last  touched,  primarily  at  all  events,  only  its  state. 
And  yet  the  transition  which  Eusebius  witnessed 
was   also    momentous.     Misunderstood,    despised, 
oppressed  thus  far,  discriminated  against  in  every 
fashion,    the    objective    point    of    every    popular 
tumult,  and  viewed  with  hostility  more  often  by 
good  rulers  than  by  bad ;  doing  its  work  in  large 
degree  in  secret,  barely  tolerated  even  in  the  times 
of  laxest  administration,  and  at  the  last  fiercely 
persecuted  because,  in   the  judgment  of   such    a 
straightforward  pagan  as  Diocletian,  it  constituted 
an  intolerable  menace  to  the  state ;  the  church  sud- 
denly overbalanced,  in  the  shrewd  estimate  of  states- 
men and  of  soldier-emperors,  the  pagan  elements 
against  which  it  had  been  weighed.     It  was  seen 
for  what  it  was,  the  true  moral  and  conservative 
force   with   which    the   civil   authority  must   ally 
itself  if  it  would  save  the  world  from  utter  disso- 
lution.    For,  whatever  we  may  think  of  Constan- 
tine's  motives,  and  however  true  it  may  be  that  in 
doing  as  he  did  he  followed  his  own  interest,  it  was 
at  least  a  self-interest  which  reckoned  with  moral 
magnitudes  and  desired  to  have  moral  forces  on 
its  side.     Marcus  Aurelius,  also,  had  reckoned,  in 
pathetic    loneliness  and  bitterness  of    spirit,  with 
those   moral    magnitudes.      But   Christianity   had 
apparently  never  been  seen  by  him  in  any  light 
save  that  of  its  ignorant  fanaticisms,  the  very  light 


1/2        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    EAST 

in  which  it  was  most  repulsive  to  the  lofty  spirit 
of  the  Stoic.  Christianity  had  seemed  to  offer  him 
no  help  as,  in  deep  moral  solicitude,  he  bore  the 
weight  of  the  whole  world.  One  lets  his  imagina- 
tion play  with  the  question.  Might  the  civil  author- 
ity at  least  have  postponed  its  own  dissolution, 
would  the  course  of  the  decay  of  the  ancient  civili- 
zation, the  decline  of  the  ancient  world,  have  been 
materially  different,  if  that  authority  had  earlier 
and  in  hearty  fashion  struck  alliance  with  the 
moral  forces  which  Christianity  unquestionably 
did  represent }  Answer  to  that  question,  in  part 
at  least,  is  furnished  by  the  mournful  comment 
that,  no  sooner  had  that  alliance  in  the  time  of 
Constantine  been  struck,  than  Christianity  came  to 
represent  a  great  many  things  beside  moral  forces. 
When  one  thinks  of  the  atrocities  of  the  perse- 
cution under  Diocletian  and  Galerius  and  Maximi- 
nus,  of  the  scant  tolerance  of  the  edict  of  the 
year  311,  no  greater  change  can  be  imagined  than 
that  which  took  place  when,  in  rapid  succession, 
after  the  year  313,  Constantine  forced  from  his 
unwilling  colleague  Licinius  one  concession  after 
another  in  favor  of  the  Christians,  and,  after  the 
death  of  Licinius  in  324,  declared  himself  a  Chris- 
tian upon  the  throne  of  the  Caesars.  Thousands 
of  those  who  had  really  been  convinced  of  the  truth 
of  Christianity,  but  had  not  dared  to  ally  them- 
selves to  it,  now  found  themselves  not  merely  safe, 
but  honored  in  so  doing.  Ecclesiastics  became  the 
Emperor's  chief  counsellors.      Adventurers,  male 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST    1/3 

and  female,  deemed  it  good  policy  to  get  themselves 
converted.  From  Constantine  to  Julian  the  num- 
ber of  Christian  adherents  is  said  to  have  increased 
tenfold.  That  tells  a  good  part  of  the  tale.  An 
emperor  called  the  first  ecumenical  council,  pre- 
sided at  some  of  its  sittings,  gave  his  seal  to  the 
settlement  of  doctrinal  questions  which  was  there 
arrived  at,  and  offered  his  sword  for  the  execution 
of  the  same.  When  Constantine  transformed  the 
old  city  of  Byzantium  on  the  Hellespont  into  Con- 
stantinople, he  did  this  as  a  practical  measure  for 
sustaining  his  authority  in  the  far  East.  We,  who 
look  back  upon  it,  see  that  that  step  facilitated  the 
disruption  of  the  marvellous  fabric  which  the  genius 
of  the  Caesars  had  built  up.  It  left  the  Pope  more 
than  ever  to  his  own  devices.  It  increased  the 
certainty  that  the  day  would  come  when  the  church 
would  really  be  the  Roman  Empire,  after  the  state, 
as  such,  had  fallen  before  the  hordes  of  the  bar- 
barians. 

Measure  of  the  change  may  be  gathered  from 
the  fact  that,  whereas  Diocletian  had  declared  that 
no  Christian  church  should  be  left  standing,  Con- 
stantine is  credited  with  having  paid  out  of  the 
public  treasury  for  the  erection  of  Christian  basili- 
cas at  one  place  and  another,  all  the  way  from  the 
Holy  Sepulchre  at  Jerusalem  and  from  the  shores 
of  the  Bosporus  to  Trier  in  the  valley  of  the 
Mosel.  Whereas  the  same  Diocletian  had  decreed 
that  all  Christian  books  were  to  be  burned,  Constan- 
tine is  said  by  Eusebius  to  have  given  orders  for 


174        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE   EAST 

fifty  manuscripts  of  the  Holy  Scriptures  of  incredible 
sumptuousness.  Whereas  Galerius  had  ordered,  as 
indeed  Decius  had  done  before  him,  that  leaders 
in  the  Christian  community  were  everywhere  to  be 
sought  out,  condemned  to  the  sword  or  to  the  stake, 
or  thrown  to  the  wild  beasts,  Constantine's  ministers, 
even  in  secular  affairs,  were  often  church  digni- 
taries, and  he  was  pleased  to  regard  himself  as, 
in  some  sort,  an  ecclesiastical  functionary  by  the 
special  call  of  God. 

The  evils  of  the  system  thus  inaugurated  no  one 
seems  to  have  forecast.  ReUgion  had  been  always 
in  antiquity  closely  associated  with  the  state,  and 
the  state  with  rehgion.  It  was  because  of  this 
close  association  of  religion  with  the  state  that  the 
Christians  had  been  compelled  often  to  withdraw 
from  the  service  of  the  state.  It  was  because  of 
this  close  connection  of  the  ancient  religion  with 
civil  functions  that  the  heads  of  the  state  became 
so  often  the  persecutors  of  the  church.  But  the 
cathoHc  church,  as,  during  the  century  and  a  quar- 
ter from  Irenaeus  to  Eusebius  and  in  the  teeth  of 
fiercest  opposition,  it  had  organized  itself,  was  a 
factor  to  be  reckoned  with  in  a  sense  in  which 
the  ancient  religion  had  never  been  an  independent 
factor.  It  was  an  organization  in  a  sense  in  which 
the  ancient  religion  had  never  had  an  organization. 
It  was  a  moral  and  ideal  force  in  a  sense  in  which 
the  ancient  religion  had  never  been  a  force.  And 
even  in  the  mingled  and  perverted  forms  which 
the  moral  and  ideal  elements  in  Christianity  now 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST    1/5 

largely  took,  the  gigantic  force  remained.  Of  the 
magnitude  and  virulence  of  the  evils  of  the  system 
thus  inaugurated,  the  church  itself  was  in  the  next 
thousand  years  the  witness.  And  the  church,  in  all 
that  pertained  to  true  religion,  was  itself,  and  in 
hardly  less  measure  than  was  the  state  or  the  world 
at  large,  the  victim  of  those  evils.  That  for  a  time 
the  progress  of  civilization  may  have  seemed  to  be 
furthered  by  this  alliance,  may  be  admitted.  But 
that,  in  the  end,  the  cause  of  rehgion  itself  and,  as 
well,  the  causes  of  political  liberty  and  of  enlighten- 
ment, were  retarded  and  at  times  almost  crushed, 
no  one  will  dispute.  But  at  present  we  have  only 
to  chronicle  this  amazing  revolution  which  Eusebius 
saw. 

Eusebius,  bishop  of  Caesarea  in  Palestine,  was 
born  probably  in  Palestine.  He  was  the  friend  of 
Pamphilus,  the  head  of  the  school  in  Caesarea  and 
defender  of  Origen.  In  the  persecution  under  Dio- 
cletian Eusebius  fled  to  Tyre,  and  later  to  Egypt, 
where  he  was  imprisoned.  Returning  to  Palestine, 
he  became  bishop  of  Caesarea  in  313.  He  was  a 
friend  of  Constantine.  At  the  Council  of  Nicaea, 
in  the  year  325,  he  stood  at  first  upon  the  side  of 
the  Arians,  as  did  most  of  the  Origenists.  He 
strove  long  and  vigorously  for  some  kind  of  com- 
promise, but  at  last  subscribed  to  the  victorious 
formula  of  Athanasius.  He  died  in  340  a.d.  The 
notable  library  which  Pamphilus  had  gathered  at 
Caesarea  may  have  given  to  Eusebius  his  literary 
impulse.     Certainly    it    constituted,    in    part,    his 


1/6        CLOSING    OF    THE   CANON   IN    THE   EAST 

opportunity.  His  ventures  as  an  author  in  the 
department  of  theology  are  of  no  great  conse- 
quence. His  Life  of  Constantine,  which  is  really 
the  continuation  of  his  history  of  the  church,  is 
written  too  much  in  the  spirit  of  a  courtier's  adu- 
lation. His  Martyrs  of  Palestine  is  deeply  impres- 
sive, and  perhaps  we  may  pardon  him  for  writing 
in  such  heat  as  he  betrays.  But  his  great  work  is 
his  Ecclesiastical  History.  He  set  out  to  delineate 
the  Christian  movement  from  the  beginning  to 
the  year  325.  The  great  value  of  this  work  lies 
in  its  use  of  archives  which  in  Eusebius'  time 
were  in  many  places  extant,  but  since  then  have 
perished.  Eusebius  was  familiar  also  with  much 
Christian  literature  which  has  not  come  down  to 
us.  For  certain  later  parts  of  the  narrative  he 
was  an  eye-witness  of  the  stirring  events  of  which 
he  told.  That  he  should  have  possessed  the  full 
critical  spirit  in  the  use  of  his  sources  is  not  to 
be  expected.  But  his  disposition  to  fairness  and 
reality  cannot  be  denied.  His  work  remains  an 
incomparable  treasure,  although  it  is  also  an  un- 
ending problem.  It  is  the  mine  out  of  which  all 
students  of  Christian  history  must  dig. 

We  have  seen  that  Eusebius'  point  of  departure 
in  all  questions  of  scholarship  was  that  of  Origen. 
His  general  view  of  the  Canon  is  almost  precisely 
that  of  Origen.  He  devotes  the  whole  twenty- 
fourth  chapter  of  the  third  book  of  his  History  to 
a  discussion  of  the  order  and  composition  of  the 
Gospels.     The   twenty-fifth   chapter   then   begins 


CLOSING   OF   THE    CANON    IN   THE    EAST         I// 

with  these  words :  "  This  seems  to  be  the  proper 
place  to  give  a  summary  statement  of  the  books  of 
the  New  Testament."  And  these  two  chapters 
are  embedded  in  the  history  at  the  point  where 
the  author  has  just  been  speaking  of  the  Hfe  and 
death  of  the  Apostle  John,  and  before  he  comes  to 
tell  of  the  Ebionites,  of  Cerinthus,  of  the  Nicolai- 
tans,  of  the  martyrdom  of  Simeon,  of  the  edict  of 
Trajan  and  of  the  epistles  of  Ignatius. 

This  fact  in  itself  is  highly  interesting.  For 
although  the  description  which  Eusebius  gives  of 
the  state  of  the  case  concerning  New  Testament 
writings,  is  that  which  fits  no  time  until  the  time 
of  Origen,  yet  he  interjects  this  description  at  a 
point  in  his  narrative  which  brings  it  close  to  the 
lifetime  of  the  Apostles  themselves.^  In  other 
words,  because  the  literature  in  question  belongs, 
for  the  most  part,  to  this  period  in  the  history,  it 
is  not  made  clear  but  that  the  collection  of  this 
literature  into  a  New  Testament  and  the  assigning 
to  it  of  a  scriptural  authority  was  also  achieved  at 
this  same  point  in  the  history.  Direct  answer,  to 
this  effect,  beyond  question  Eusebius  would  not 
have  given.  On  the  contrary,  he  was  familiar 
with  numberless  facts  which  made  against  any 
such  supposition.  His  own  writings  are  the  source 
of  a  good  part  of  all  our  knowledge  of  these  facts. 
Nevertheless,  there  is  here,  even  in  the  work  of  a 
man  so  learned  as  Eusebius,  this  curious  effect  of 

1  Cf.  with  Eusebius,  H.  E.  iii.  24,  and  25,  especially  H.  E.  vi. 
3-16,  referred  to  above. 

N 


1/3        CLOSING    OF   THE    CANON    IN    THE    EAST 

foreshortening,  by  which  the  fact  of  the  growth  of 
the  New  Testament  tends  to  be  overlooked  and  the 
New  Testament  appears  as  if  moved  backward,  en 
bloc,  toward  the  ApostoUc  Age.  And  if  even  a 
man  so  truly  learned  as  Eusebius  did  not  escape, 
in  a  moment  of  unconsciousness,  the  working  of 
this  illusion,  how  much  more  certainly  may  we 
expect  to  meet  that  illusion  in  the  minds  of  men 
not  learned  at  all. 

In  his  catalogue  Eusebius  names  in  the  first 
instance,  of  course,  four  Gospels,  then  the  Acts, 
letters  of  Paul,  whether  thirteen  or  fourteen  he 
does  not  say,  but  Hebrews  he  does  not  otherwise 
mention,  First  John  and  First  Peter,  and  then, 
curiously  enough,  at  the  end  of  the  list  he  says, 
"and,  if  you  choose,  the  Apocalypse  of  John." 
In  the  arrangement  of  Eusebius  it  is  the  middle 
class  which  is  the  class  of  the  disputed  books. 
These  books  are  James,  Jude,  Second  Peter, 
Second  and  Third  John,  the  same  five  minor 
catholic  Epistles  which  were  with  Origen  in 
dispute.  To  the  third  class,  that  of  the  books 
falsely  alleged  to  be  apostolic,  belong  Acts  of 
Paul,  Hermas,  the  Apocalypse  of  Peter,  Barnabas, 
the  Didach^,  "  and  finally,  as  some  will  have  it, 
the  Apocalypse  of  John."  This  indecision  con- 
cerning the  Apocalypse  is  curious.  Origen  had 
positively  accepted  the  book,  although  he  knew  of 
the  dispute  concerning  it.  Eusebius  knows  of  the 
dispute,  and  appears  inclined  to  reject  the  book.^ 

1  See  especially  Eusebius,  H.  E.  vii.  25. 


CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    EAST         1 79 

In  the  end,  however,  we  have  this  contradictory 
statement,  which  puts  the  book  in  two  places  in 
his  classification. 

Since  Eusebius  speaks  in  other  passages  in  his 
History  of  one  and  another  of  the  matters  here  in- 
volved, and  since  his  statements  do  not  always  agree 
with  that  which  he  has  here  put  in  tabular  form, 
his  real  position  has  been  somewhat  in  question. 
It  is  possible  that  the  whole  table  represents  the 
overwhelming  influence  of  Origen  upon  Eusebius, 
and  that  his  own  opinions  may  be  gathered  rather 
from  that  which  he  has  elsewhere  said.  In  gen- 
eral, however,  one  sees  how  completely  we  have 
come  to  the  basis  of  apostolicity  as  the  ground  of 
decision  in  reference  to  books.  But  often  the  argu- 
ment runs  like  this :  Either  the  books  contain  he- 
retical sentiments,  in  which  case  they  cannot  be 
apostolic ;  or  else  they  have  come  down  from  the 
ancients  as  apostolic,  and  we  see  no  heretical  senti- 
ments in  them,  therefore  they  may  be  accepted 
by  us  also  as  apostolic.  Often  his  procedure  is 
almost  like  a  counting  of  heads.  And  sometimes 
the  authorities  thus  to  be  counted  in  the  settlement 
of  the  Canon  are  communities,  and  again  they  are 
individual  authors.  It  is  no  wonder  if  by  this 
method  inconsistency  in  statement  sometimes 
results. 

Eusebius  diligently  counts  the  votes  of  the  an- 
cients, for  example  against  Clement  and  Barnabas. 
But  he  puts  the  wrong  interpretation  on  that  vote. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  real  reason  for  the  exclu- 


l80        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN   THE    EAST 

sion  of  such  books  as  those  of  Clement  and  Barna- 
bas was  not  that  the  men  of  the  earliest  time 
doubted  that  such  books  were  from  the  authors 
whose  names  they  bore,  although  it  is  sometimes 
open  to  us  to  have  doubts  upon  this  point.  Still 
less  would  the  men  of  that  earliest  time  have  denied 
that  Barnabas  and  the  rest  stood  near  to  the  apos- 
tolic circle,  and  might  conceivably  have  shared,  in 
some  measure,  in  the  original  spiritual  impulse. 
The  real  reason  was  that  the  content  of  these 
books  had  never  commended  them  in  a  measure 
which  brought  them  into  general  use.  They  had 
never  been  used  in  public  worship  in  anything 
approaching  universal  way.  Their  exclusion  from 
the  Canon  was,  therefore,  upon  the  surface,  a  judg- 
ment merely  upon  the  basis  of  rejection  in  fact. 
Deeper  down,  however,  it  was  a  general  judgment 
of  the  quality  of  the  books.  It  was  that  kind  of  a 
judgment  of  masses  of  men  and  successive  genera- 
tions concerning  great  literature  which  the  world 
has  cogie  to  regard  as  nearly  infallible.  It  was 
that  kind  of  a  judgment  of  a  moral  and  spiritual 
magnitude,  uninfluenced,  unreasoned,  or  at  least 
unconscious,  which,  when  from  millions  of  men, 
and  these  widely  severed  both  in  time  and  space, 
it  converges  upon  some  one  object,  we  are  wont  to 
say  can  never  make  mistake.  Of  this  sort  was 
the  historic  Christian  judgment  concerning  the 
main  Christian  books.  But  when  no  longer  accept- 
ance, or  the  spiritual  quality  which  lay  behind  the 
general  acceptance  of  a  book,  but,  instead  of  these, 


CLOSING    OF   THE   CANON    IN   THE   EAST        l8l 

apostolicity  became  the  ground  of  decision,  then 
the  middle  class,  that  of  the  disputed  books,  could 
no  longer  be  maintained.  The  great  public  could 
hardly  leave  such  a  question  forever  unsettled. 
Either  the  books,  like  the  five  minor  catholic 
Epistles  and  the  Hebrews  and  the  Apocalypse, 
must  be  declared  apostolic,  and  therefore  placed 
in  the  Canon,  or  else  they  must  be  declared 
false,  forged,  pretenders  to  apostolic  quality.  In 
that  case  they  must  be  put  out  of  the  Canon, 
and  that  with  a  contumely  which  would  not  have 
been  their  lot  had  the  claim  of  apostoHc  au- 
thorship and  authority  never  been  made  on  their 
behalf. 

Uncertain,  for  Eusebius,  is  really  only  the  Apoca- 
lypse.^ The  discussion  of  this  matter  he  introduces 
with  a  letter  of  Dionysius,  Bishop  of  Alexandria, 
who  died  in  264  a.d.  Dionysius  could  not  believe 
that  the  opening  verses  of  this  book  were  intention- 
ally misleading.  At  the  same  time  his  critical  judg- 
ment, as  he  compared  the  Apocalypse  with  the 
Gospel  and  the  First  Epistle,  convinced  him  that 
it  could  not  be  the  work  of  the  author  of  those 
books.  The  name  John  was  a  common  one  in 
Ephesus,  he  says.  Tombs  of  persons  of  that 
name  had  been  shown  to  him.  This  book  must 
have  been  written  by  another  John,  a  holy  and 
inspired  person,  whom  men  then  confused  with 
the  Apostle.  At  the  same  time,  as  to  the  con- 
tents of  the  book,  Dionysius  conceded  that  they 

^  Eusebius,  H.  E.  vii.  25. 


1 82  CLOSING    OF   THE    CANON    IN    THE    EAST 

were  too  high  for  his  understanding.  The  ac- 
knowledgment of  the  spiritual  worth  of  the  book 
could  be  only  a  matter  of  faith. 

This  was  good  for  scholars  like  Dionysius.  But 
the  people  knew  only  one  Apostle  John.  If  this 
new  presbyter,  John  of  Ephesus,  stood  in  some 
such  relation  to  the  Apostle  John  as  that  in  which 
Mark  was  alleged  to  have  stood  to  Peter,  then  his 
book  might  come  into  the  Canon.  But  in  that  case 
it  would  be  the  Apostle  John  who  was  responsible 
for  it,  after  all.  Dionysius  had  said  that  it  was 
difficult  to  read.  But  if  it  was  apostolic  it  must 
be  read,  and,  if  need  be,  it  must  be  allegorized. 
This  it  was  which  men  did  with  other  writings 
which  they  did  not  understand.  But  if  it  was  not 
apostolic,  then  it  should  be  removed  from  the  Canon. 
For  the  popular  mind,  we  may  be  reasonably  sure, 
the  judgment  that  it  was  not  apostolic  would  have 
removed  the  book  from  the  Canon.  But  it  was 
in  the  Canon.  It  was  much  read  and  loved  in 
the  West,  and  the  West  was  dominant.  There- 
fore, in  the  end,  the  book  came  into  the  Canon 
in  the  East  also.  And  its  remaining  in  the  Canon 
amounted  to  the  confirmation  of  its  apostoHcity. 

.By  this  curiously  inconsequent  series  of  argu- 
ments the  Greek  church,  after  Eusebius,  satisfied 
itself  to  do  that  which  the  Roman  church  had  long 
since  done,  namely,  to  canonize  the  Apocalypse. 
It  came  to  deem  that  it  had  not  the  full  collection 
of  the  apostolic  writings  until  it  possessed  the 
twenty-seven  which  we  know. 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST    1 83 

What  Eusebius  wrote  belongs  before  the  year 
340,  and    part   of   it,  perhaps,  before    325.      We 
have  a  list  from  Cyril  of  Jerusalem  of  about  the 
year  348.     We  have  one  from  Athanasius  in  an 
Easter  epistle  of  the  year  367.     We  have  a  list 
from  Epiphanius  of  the  year  403.     There  are  also 
two  metrical  lists.     One  of  these  is  of  Gregory  of 
Nazianzus,  who  died  in   390  a.d.,  and  the  other 
of  his  friend,  Amphilochius  of  Iconium,  the  date 
of  which  latter  list  we  do  not  know.     There  is  a 
curious  absence  of  synodical  decrees.     The  eighty- 
fifth  of  the  so-called  Apostolic  Canons  may  belong 
to  this  general  period.     But  that  is  by  no  means 
certain.      The   sixtieth    Canon  of   the  Council  of 
Laodicea,    possibly  of   the   year  363,  is   beHeved 
to  be  a  later  addition.     It  seems  to  be  a  mere  sup- 
plement to  the  fifty-ninth  decree,  which  had  for- 
bidden the  reading  of  uncanonical  New  Testament 
books.     Some  later  editor  of  these  Canons  then 
seems  to  have  felt  that  the  books  which  might  be 
read  should  be  named.      Of   these  various  lists, 
that  of  Amphilochius  alone  puts  the  matter  in  sta- 
tistical form  as  Eusebius   and  Origen  had  done. 
According  to  Amphilochius  fourteen    letters   are 
of  Pauline  authorship,  but  by  most  Christians  the 
Apocalypse  is  deemed  not  genuine.    Cyril,  Gregory, 
and  the  sixtieth  Canon  of  Laodicea  all  have  but 
twenty-six  books.      The  Apocalypse   is   wanting. 
But  the  seven  catholic  Epistles  are  spoken  of  as 
if  the  very  memory  of  the  long  dispute  concerning 
them  had  faded  from  men's  minds.     The  famous 


184   CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST 

synod  of  the  year  692,  known  as  the  Quinisexta, 
had  two  decrees  touching  the  Canon,  one  with  and 
the  other  without  the  Apocalypse. 

Similar  to  that  of  Cyril  is  the  general  judg- 
ment of  Athanasius  except  in  the  one  particular. 
He  has  the  Apocalypse.  Athanasius  had  lived 
long  in  Trier  in  Germany,  and  may  there  have 
learned  to  know  and  value  the  book.  At  least  he 
may  there  have  learned  the  value  of  agreement 
between  East  and  West,  and  been  convinced  that 
the  West  would  never  surrender  the  Apocalypse. 
Undoubtedly  the  personal  influence  of  Athanasius 
did  much  to  carry  through  this  decision  in  the 
eastern  church.  And  yet  Chrysostom  and  Theo- 
doret  were  against  the  book.  Arians  everywhere 
rejected  it.  Its  conquest  of  the  East  was 
very  gradual.  Photius,  Aretas,  and  the  great 
men  of  the  revival  of  the  Greek  church  in  the 
eighth  and  ninth  centuries  all  had  it.  But  even 
in  the  tenth  century  one  finds  manuscripts  which 
have  no  Apocalypse  and  writers  who  declare 
that  there  are  but  twenty-six  New  Testament 
books.^ 

The  life  of  Athanasius,  Bishop  of  Alexandria, 
was  so  completely  taken  up  in  the  great  contest 
with  Arianism  that  his  biography  might  be  said 
to  be  the  history  of  that  strife.  He  attended  the 
Council  of  Nicaea  as  deacon,  and  secretary  of  the 
aged  Bishop  Alexander  of  Alexandria.  But,  de- 
spite his  subordinate  position  and  his  youth,  he 

1  Jiilicher,  Einleitung,  p.  342. 


CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    EAST         185 

was   easily   the   intellectual    leader    of    the    party 
which  triumphed  in  that  assembly.     So  early  as 
in  328,  he  succeeded  to  the  bishopric  of  Alexan- 
dria.    In  the  long  interval  until  his  death  in  the 
year  373  he  contended,  unwearied,  for  the  Nicene 
statement  concerning  the  person  of  Christ.     Five 
times    Athanasius   was    banished    from   his    city. 
Twenty  years  all  together  he  spent  in  exile  from 
his   see.      But   from   the   time   of    his    return   to 
Alexandria  in  366  a.d.  he  was  able  to  hold  the 
field.     Athanasius   was   more    than    a    controver- 
sialist.    He  was  a  true  shepherd  of  souls  and  a 
man  upon  whom  the  practical  issues  of  religion 
and  the  demoralization  of  his  flock,  through  the 
long  frenzy,  weighed  most  heavily.     It  is  mainly 
his  practical  writings  which  are  for  our  purposes 
significant.     And  we  should  not  be  mistaken  if  we 
said  that  it  was  the  practical  emergency  created 
by  the  Trinitarian  controversy  which  made  men, 
of  both  parties  probably,  in  that  dreadful  time,  to 
feel  that  continued  uncertainty  as  to  what  con- 
stituted the  authoritative  body  of  Christian  writ- 
ings was  insufferable.     And  yet  apart  from  his 
opinion,  above  cited,  concerning  the  Apocalypse, 
it  was  not  much  that  Athanasius  contributed  to 
the  closing  of  the  Canon.     Rather,  we  may  still 
observe  in  Athanasius  the  lingering  of  the  Alex- 
andrine tradition.     The  Wisdom  of  Solomon  and 
other  Old  Testament  apocryphal  books,  and  be- 
side these,  the  Didache  and  Hermas,  although  he 
says  of  them  distinctly  that  they  do  not  belong  to 


1 86    CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST 

the  Canon,  might  yet  be  read  for  the  instruction 
of  the  catechumens. 

There  was  never  an  authoritative  last  word 
spoken  in  the  East,  as  the  Gelasian  decree  had 
been  the  last  word  in  the  West.  There  was  in 
the  East  no  generally  acknowledged  authority 
which  could  have  spoken  such  a  word.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  was  never  any  such  awakening 
of  men's  minds  or  a  reopening  of  the  question 
in  the  East  such  as  we  find  in  the  time  of  the 
Renaissance  and  Reformation  in  the  West.  Still 
less  has  there  been  a  movement  of  scholarship  in 
the  Greek  church  to  be  compared  with  the  rise  of 
New  Testament  criticism  in  Europe  and  America 
in  the  nineteenth  century.  In  the  general  stag- 
nation of  intellectual  life  in  the  Christian  Orient 
after  the  ninth  century  the  last  word  had  been 
spoken,  none  the  less.  And  it  remains  practically 
the  last  word  in  the  Greek  church  to  this  day. 
Cyril  Lucar,  in  1645,  enumerated  the  twenty-seven 
books,  and  a  council  of  Jerusalem  in  1672,  without 
naming  the  books,  declared  that  such  works  must 
be  reckoned  as  belonging  to  the  New  Testament 
as  the  acknowledged  Fathers  and  the  orthodox 
Synod  have  thus  reckoned. 

Extremely  interesting  are  some  illustrations 
which  have  been  given  of  the  way  in  which  men, 
as  the  night  of  the  Dark  Ages  drew  on,  seemed 
occasionally  to  forget  that  the  New  Testament 
was  closed,  and  sought  to  bring  into  it  other  books 
which  they  had  come  to  believe  to  be  apostolical, 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST    1 8/ 

which  were  read  in  churches,  which  were  useful  for 
the  Christian  Hfe,  or  which  for  some  reason  were 
regarded  by  them  as  inspired  writings.^  Thus  a 
manuscript  of  the  New  Testament  found  in  the 
cloister  of  Bobbio,  which  belongs,  very  likely,  to  the 
seventh  or  to  the  eighth  century,  solemnly  counts 
twenty-eight  books.  It  has  added  something  under 
the  name  of  the  Book  of  the  Sacrament.  It  can 
hardly  be  doubted  that  this  means  the  Book  of  the 
Mass.  What  we  here  have  is  the  canonization  of 
ritual.  It  is  the  apprehension  of  liturgy  under  the 
same  idea  of  sacredness  and  inspiration  which  be- 
longed to  Scripture.  The  point  of  view  of  the  New 
Testament  as  the  original  Hterature  of  Christianity, 
created  under  the  immediate  impulse  of  Jesus,  has 
been  lost.  Or  should  we  say  that  the  liturgy  also 
is  carried  back  in  the  naive  thought  of  the  writer 
to  the  Apostles'  time  ?  But  this  impulse,  because 
of  the  use  of  the  ritual  in  churches  and  because  of 
a  vague  sense  of  its  inspiration  to  include  this  also 
in  the  New  Testament,  is  almost  an  isolated  case 
in  the  West. 

On  the  other  hand,  in  the  Greek  church,  cases 
which  illustrate  the  same  principle  are  not  alto- 
gether uncommon.  The  so-called  ApostoHc  Con- 
stitutions, books  forged  in  the  name  of  Clement  of 
Rome  and  added  to  from  time  to  time  from  the 
fourth  to  the  sixth  centuries,  are  several  times 
enumerated  as  part  of  the  New  Testament.  The 
interest  here,  however,  is  in  church  government, 

1  Jiilicher,  Einleitting^  p.  343. 


1 88        CLOSING    OF    THE    CANON    IN    THE    EAST 

and  not,  as  before,  in  worship.  This  drift  to  the 
inclusion  of  books  of  ecclesiastical  law  with  the 
Scripture  goes  so  far  that  an  ^thiopic  New  Testa- 
ment, of  unknown  date,  contains  thirty-five  books, 
the  additions  being  all  of  the  nature  of  canon  law. 
In  truth,  if  men  had  identified  the  notions  of  the 
canonical  and  of  the  apostolic,  and  then  came  to 
believe  in  the  apostoHc  origin  of  such  books  as  the 
so-called  Apostolic  Constitutions,  it  is  not  altogether 
strange  that  some  should  have  thought  to  place 
these  also  in  the  Canon. 

The  same  logic  might  have  led  men  in  the  west- 
ern church  to  put  the  Apostles'  Creed  in  the  New- 
Testament  Canon,  in  the  days  when  the  great  in- 
terest of  the  western  church  was  in  its  creed,  and 
when  men  had  come  firmly  to  believe  that  this 
elaboration  of  the  Roman  baptismal  formula  went 
back  to  the  Apostles  themselves.  But  it  must  be 
remembered  that  in  the  occidental  church  there 
had  always  been  a  much  sharper  sense  of  the 
boundary  of  the  Canon  than  in  the  East.  Before 
the  state  of  things  which  we  have  described  de- 
scended upon  the  West,  the  New  Testament  Canon 
had  been  authoritatively  closed  in  that  portion  of 
the  world.  In  the  East  that  had,  indeed,  never  been 
the  case.  But  in  the  East  men  had  had,  prevail- 
ingly, not  the  Apostles'  Creed,  but  the  Nicene 
and  Athanasian  creeds.  And  although  of  course 
men  held  these  to  be,  for  substance,  identical  with 
that  which  the  Apostles  taught,  yet  they  never 
attributed   them  directly  to  apostolic  authorship. 


CLOSING  OF  THE  CANON  IN  THE  EAST    1 89 

and  so  they   could  not   place   them  in  the  New 
Testament  Canon  under  the  Apostles'  name. 

Once  again  we  must  speak  of  the  Syrian  church 
as  having  had,  in  this  matter  of  the  New  Testament 
Canon,  a  slower  development  than  had  either  the 
Latin  church  or  the  Greek.  We  noted  that  still 
in  the  time  of  Theodoret  the  Syrian  church,  in  its 
use  of  Tatian's  Diatessaron,  occupied  a  position 
which  the  Greek  church  had  left  behind  it  two 
hundred  years  earlier  in  the  acceptance  of  four 
Gospels.  The  famous  Syriac  translation,  the 
Peshitto,  which  can  hardly  be  older  than  the  time 
of  Eusebius,  still  has  but  twenty-two  books,  that  is, 
not  Jude,  not  Second  Peter,  not  Second  or  Third 
John,  and  not  the  Apocalypse.  This,  again,  is  a 
point  in  the  discussion  which  the  Greek  church 
had  passed  almost  a  century  earlier.  And  one 
must  remember  that  the  church  of  Eastern  Syria, 
after  the  Council  of  Chalcedon  in  the  year  431,  held 
to  Nestorianism,  which  had  been  condemned,  and 
so  came  to  be  separated  from  the  great  body  of  the 
church,  both  East  and  West,  more  completely  than 
ever.  A  manuscript  of  the  year  1470,  probably 
of  Nestorian  origin,  closes  the  New  Testament 
solemnly  after  the  Pauline  letters.  The  author 
then  says,  "  We  append  also  letters  of  Apostles  not 
acknowledged  by  all."  These  are,  namely,  Second 
Peter,  Second  and  Third  John,  and  Jude,  and  the 
two  so-called  Clementine  Letters  on  Virginity. 
The  Apocalypse  is  not  so  much  as  named.  This 
curious   survival  indicates  how  men   in  monastic 


1 90      THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION 

ages  sometimes  went  on  copying  out  opinions,  not 
realizing  that  those  opinions  had  been  for  a  thou- 
sand years  already  obsolete. 

The  Renaissance,  with  its  awakening  of  men 
to  the  historical  and  Hterary  sense,  caused  stu- 
dents in  most  unexpected  ways  to  feel,  as  if  by 
instinct,  that  much  which  they  had  accepted  as 
beyond  question  was  very  questionable,  and  much 
which  they  had  deemed  fixed  had,  at  any  rate,  not 
always  been  thus  fixed.  The  influence  of  Constan- 
tinople upon  the  revival  of  learning  in  the  Occident 
was  enormous.  Byzantine  scholars  flooded  Europe 
and  introduced  the  West  afresh  to  treasures, 
both  classical  and  ecclesiastical,  in  the  Greek 
tongue.  But  the  influence  of  these  men  upon 
their  own  portion  of  the  church  was  insignificant. 
The  hope,  cherished  so  lately  as  the  beginning 
of  the  seventeenth  century,  by  a  few  enlightened 
spirits  under  the  patriarchate,  of  a  reunion  with  the 
Protestants,  seems  to  us  now  utterly  chimerical. 
Though  the  genius  of  the  Renaissance  was  the 
Greek  spirit,  yet  that  spirit  scarcely  touched  the 
Greek  church. 

The  Reformation,  with  its  general  assault  upon 
the  principle  of  tradition,  touched  the  tradition  of 
the  Scripture  Canon,  along  with  many  others.  The 
very  emphasis  which  Protestantism  laid  upon  the 
Scripture  should  have  had,  as  one  of  its  corollaries, 
the  most  thoroughgoing  investigation  of  the  Scrip- 
ture upon  which  such  exclusive  reliance  was  placed. 


THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION       I9I 

And  indeed,  in  the  hands  of  the  first  and  greatest 
among  the  Reformers,  this  inquiry  for  a  time  bade 
fair  to  be  inaugurated.  But  the  times  were  not 
ripe  for  it.  The  state  of  general  knowledge  did 
not  really  permit  it.  Practical  interests,  in  no 
small  part  the  political  interests,  of  the  Reforma- 
tion, fully  occupied  men's  minds  and  filled  their 
hands.  A  generation  later  the  exclusive  authority 
which  the  Protestants  attributed  to  Scripture,  with 
their  external  way  of  apprehending  that  authority, 
the  apparent  necessity  of  finding  it  an  infallible 
authority  as  over  against  the  infallible  authority 
of  the  Roman  church,  made  Protestants,  of  all 
men,  for  the  time  at  least,  those  who  were  most 
unlikely  to  initiate  a  great  critical  movement  which 
should  ultimately  do  for  the  tradition  of  Scripture 
exactly  what  the  Reformation  had  done  for  the 
tradition  of  the  church.  That  this  was  the  logic 
of  Protestantism  no  one  can  doubt.  But  that  logic 
has  been  long  in  asserting  itself.  For  quite  in- 
telligible reasons,  nowhere  has  this  inquiry  been  at 
times  so  much  resisted  as  in  Protestant  churches. 
But  on  the  other  hand,  nowhere  has  the  movement 
for  the  fearless  investigation  of  Scripture  been 
fostered  to  such  an  extent  as  among  Protestants; 
that  is  to  say,  by  the  very  persons  whose  ac- 
knowledged and  sole  basis  of  faith  it  is  which  is 
being  thus  rigidly  investigated.  Underneath  tem- 
porary hesitations  and  despite  occasional  fears,  the 
real  spirit  of  Protestantism  has  been  and  is  that  of 
entire  reliance  upon  the  truth,  and  of  the  search 


192       THE    RENAISSANCE   AND   THE   REFORMATION 

for  that  truth,  whithersoever  that  search  may  lead. 
If  the  fear,  which  was  born  of  the  reaUzation  how 
much  is,  for  Protestants,  at  stake  in  the  investiga- 
tion of  the  Scripture,  has  sometimes  held  men  back, 
yet  the  love  of  the  Scripture  and  the  real  trust 
in  it  have  driven  them  forward.  Underneath  has 
been  the  conviction  that  God  is  Himself  the  truth, 
and  all  study  of  the  truth  must  lead  us  but  to  God. 
Underneath  has  been  the  divination  that,  as  the 
dissolving  of  the  mediaeval  way  of  thinking  of  the 
authority  of  the  church  brought  men  more  truly 
under  the  mastery  of  Christ  himself,  so  the  dis- 
covery that  the  inspiration  of  the  Scripture  is  the 
inspiring  Christ,  and  the  authority  of  Scripture  is 
that  of  truth  and  of  God  Himself,  will  be  to  us  not 
a  loss  but  an  immeasurable  gain. 

So  long  ago  as  in  the  time  of  Nicholas  of  Lyre, 
a  Franciscan  monk,  professor  of  theology  in  Paris 
until  1325,  reminiscences  of  the  struggle  concern- 
ing the  New  Testament  Canon  had  been  present 
to  men's  minds.  So  vividly  were  his  words  re- 
membered that  some  of  Luther's  opponents,  by 
way  of  impugning  Luther's  originality,  had  said 
that  if  Lyre  had  not  played,  Luther  would  not  have 
danced.  The  Cardinal  Cajetan,  whose  commen- 
tary was  finished  in  1529,  had  learned,  as  any  one 
might  easily  have  learned  through  Jerome,  that 
Hebrews,  James,  Jude,  Second  Peter,  Second  and 
Third  John,  and  the  Apocalypse  were  very  possibly 
not  to  be  attributed  to  the  Apostles  whose  names 
they  bore.      Certain   it   was   that   in    the   ancient 


THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION       I93 

church  they  had  not  been  always  thus  attributed. 
Erasmus,  who  died  in  1526,  was  deeply  in  doubt 
concerning  Second  Peter  and  Jude.  He  ascribed 
Second  and  Third  John  to  the  so-called  presbyter. 
He  was  uncertain  about  James.  He  did  not  believe 
that  the  Hebrews  could  have  been  written  by  Paul. 
He  made  current  again  a  good  part  of  the  substance 
of  the  ancient  arguments  against  the  Apocalypse. 
But,  in  his  own  ironical  fashion,  he  proclaimed  him- 
self ready  to  submit  his  judgment,  should  the  judg- 
ment of  the  church  be  to  the  contrary.  Other 
Catholic  writers  of  note  continued  to  express  with 
no  great  originality  these  historic  doubts. 

Deeply  interesting  is  the  fact  here  brought  to 
light,  that  this  great  discussion  in  the  modern 
world  comes  to  life  again,  after  a  thousand  years, 
upon  precisely  the  point  where  a  millennium  before 
it  had  died  out.  The  only  wonder  is  that,  with 
the  writings  even  only  of  Jerome  before  men's  eyes, 
it  had  not  earlier  been  revived.  The  question  was 
again  merely  the  minor  one  as  to  the  boundary  of 
the  Canon.  It  was  only  the  query  whether  six  or 
seven  books,  and  these  surely  not  the  most  impor- 
tant ones,  do  or  do  not  belong  to  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Or,  to  put  the  issue  still  more  accurately, 
and  since  these  books  by  right  of  much  more  than 
a  thousand  years  of  acceptance,  do  belong  to  the 
New  Testament  Canon,  the  question  was  solely 
whether  they  belong  to  it  for  the  reasons  which 
the  Fathers  had  been  pleased  to  give,  namely,  be- 
cause of  the  apostolic  authorship  of  these  books. 


194      THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION 

The  profounder  question,  the  religious  question,  as 
to  the  notion  and  nature  of  the  New  Testament, 
the  question  as  to  the  meaning  of  our  having  any 
New  Testament,  was  left  for  the  profound  and 
rehgious  soul  of  Luther  to  wrestle  with  as  he 
wrestled  with  so  many  questions  besides. 

After  the  Council  of  Florence,  Eugene  IV,  in  a 
bull  of  the  year  1441,  had  confirmed  the  Canon  of 
Augustine.  But  to  put  an  end  to  the  doubts  of 
its  own  members,  and  as  well  to  condemn  the 
Protestant  movement  toward  that  reopening  of  the 
whole  question  which  seemed  imminent,  the  Roman 
Catholic  church  in  the  Council  of  Trent,  in  the  ses- 
sion of  the  8th  of  April,  1546,  officially  declared  the 
twenty-seven  books  canonical.  Unfortunately,  this 
Canon  of  the  Council  of  Trent  committed  itself  also 
to  the  reiteration  of  some  traditional  opinions,  his- 
torical and  hterary,  the  defence  of  which,  as  all 
men  now  clearly  see,  was  not  at  all  necessary  to 
the  just  assertion  that  these  twenty-seven  are  the 
canonical  books. 

Martin  Chemnitz,  the  Reformer,  made  the  lumi- 
nous remark  that  the  later  church  could  never,  by 
decree,  make  certain  that  of  which  the  early  church 
upon  historical  evidence  had  remained  uncertain.^ 
Bellarmine  had  contended  in  the  Council  of  Trent 
that  the  church  could  declare  canonical  and  apos- 
tolic Scripture  concerning  which  earlier  Christians 
had  been  in  doubt.     This  it  could  do  out  of  the 

1  Chemnitz,  Examen  Concil.  Trid.  1565.  See  Holtzmann,  Ein- 
leitung^  p.  158  f. 


THE   RENAISSANCE   AND   THE    REFORMATION       1 95 

common  consent  and  judgment  of  Christian  peo- 
ple.    Not  in  the  sense  of  the  continued  iteration 
of  a  fixed  tradition  within  an  interested  institution, 
but  in  the  large  sense  of  that  free  spiritual  recog- 
nition, on  the  part  of  the  community,  of  which  we 
spoke  above,  what  Cardinal  Bellarmine  has  here 
alleged  is  true.     But  it   is  not  true  in  the  sense 
against  which  Chemnitz  strove,  as  if  men's  votes 
could  make  certain  that  Paul  wrote  a  book  which  we 
have  no  literary  evidence  that  he  wrote.     The  con- 
tention of  Bellarmine  is  true  in  the  sense  that  the 
hearts  of  men  may  be  quite  sure  that  the  creative 
spirit  of  the  Christian  origins  is  in  a  book  whose 
authorship    we   very   possibly    shall   never  know. 
This  decree  of  the  Council  of  Trent,  by  the  way, 
was  reiterated  by  the  Vatican  Council  in  the  ses- 
sion of  the  24th  of  April,  1870.     The  Vatican  de- 
cree was  also  hardly  more  than  the  canonization  of 
tradition  in  face  of  the  modern  movement  for  Bib- 
lical research  which  in  the  years  from  1835  to  1870 
had  agitated  all  the  world.     It  has  not  been  claimed 
that  either  the  decree  of  Trent  or  that  of  the  Vati- 
can was  in  any  great  degree  the  result  of  fresh  and 
thoroughgoing  study  of  the  historical  and  critical 
material  involved. 

But  in  truth,  if  we  look  closely  into  it,  we  shall 
see  that  the  Reformers  themselves,  despite  such 
soul-stirrings  on  the  part  of  Luther  and  Calvin  as 
have  been  alluded  to,  did  not  separate  themselves 
from  the  Roman  church  in  respect  of  the  idea 
of  the  Canon,  whatever  comments  they  may  have 


196      THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION 

made  upon  the  compass  of  it.  They,  too,  in  the 
earher  stages  of  their  investigation,  revived  mainly 
the  ancient  doubts  as  to  the  area  of  the  Canon. 
And  when  these  doubts  as  to  the  authorship  of 
certain  books,  and  the  recovery  of  the  true  sense 
for  the  historical  process  by  which  the  Canon  had 
come  into  being,  began  to  have  their  logical  effect 
upon  the  notion  and  authority  of  the  Canon  itself, 
the  Protestants  drew  back.  The  idea  of  the  Canon 
remained  the  traditional  and  Catholic  one,  with  the 
Protestants  as  well,  until  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  And  it  must  be  owned  that  this 
idea  was  the  only  one  which  was  coherent  with 
the  thought  of  a  revelation  suspending  the  facul- 
ties of  men,  and  of  the  might  of  inspiration  as 
residing  in  the  words  themselves.  Only  the  an- 
cient idea  of  revelation  as  external  and  purely 
miraculous,  could  have  made  possible  the  scholas- 
tic Protestant  theory  of  the  authority  of  Scripture 
which  in  the  seventeenth  century  prevailed.  Men 
like  Luther,  Zwingli,  and  Calvin  had,  from  the  side 
of  pure  religious  intuition,  made  astonishing  fetches 
into  the  opposite  theory  of  revelation,  which  has 
come  now  largely  to  obtain.  That  theory  makes 
revelation  psychologically  normal,  perfectly  hu- 
man, without  being  less  divine.  That  idea  makes 
inspiration  the  influence  of  God  who  is  Spirit  upon 
man  who  is  spirit  too.  Such  influence  leaves  the 
freedom,  the  initiative,  the  consciousness  of  the 
man  receiving  the  revelation,  as  natural,  as  much 
unimpaired,  as   is    his   attitude   in   the   utterance 


THE    RENAISSANCE   AND    THE    REFORMATION       1 9/ 

of  any  other  thought  which  ever  came  forth  from 
his  own  soul.  In  fact,  it  is  in  man's  own  free- 
dom and  in  the  glorifying  of  his  human  quaHties 
that  the  divine  is  evidenced.  This  theory  accounts 
perfectly  for  all  the  individuahty  and  concrete 
traits  of  the  particular  books.  It  makes  of  reve- 
lation simply  the  religious  experience  in  unique 
depth  and  significance,  together,  if  you  choose, 
with  the  power  of  utterance,  for  the  sake  of  others, 
of  the  thing  which  a  man  in  his  own  uplifted  spirit 
has  experienced.  The  Reformers  made  astonish- 
ing fetches  into  this  truth.  But  they  never  worked 
these  ideas  into  the  clear,  and  subsequent  genera- 
tions lost  them  altogether. 

To  this  we  must  add  that  the  criticism  of  the 
Reformers,  and  especially  that  of  Luther,  was  far 
too  subjective  and  dogmatic  to  achieve  secure 
results.  Personal  religious  experience  had  brought 
to  Luther  the  certainty  of  his  faith.  That  faith 
he  was  ready  to  prove  out  of  Scripture  against  all 
comers.  But  in  so  doing  he  elevated  his  own 
understanding,  especially  of  words  of  Paul,  into  a 
standard  of  judgment  of  everything  else.  To  him 
John's  writings  and  Paul's,  and  of  Paul,  especially 
the  Epistles  to  the  Romans  and  to  the  Galatians, 
are  the  core  of  the  Canon,  "  the  right  certain  and 
main  books."  And  this  in  its  own  sense  is  entirely 
true.  The  rest  of  the  books  he  deemed  to  be 
lower  in  their  intensity  of  inspiration,  and  of  some 
of  them  he  speaks  almost  contemptuously.  James 
is  a  mere  epistle  of  straw,  because  it  tells  of  works 


198       THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION 

only  instead  of  speaking  of  our  salvation  by  faith 
alone.  James  has,  moreover,  nothing  concerning 
the  suffering  and  atonement  of  Christ.  Hebrews 
is  wrong  in  denying  for  any  man  the  possibility  of 
repentance.  James,  Jude,  and  the  Apocalypse  are 
also  wrong  in  their  teachings  concerning  penitence. 
Apollos  must  have  written  Hebrews.  Jude  and 
Second  Peter  are  unnecessary  letters.  Concern- 
ing the  Apocalypse  he  is  unable  to  see  that  it  can 
have  been  put  forth  by  the  Holy  Ghost.^  One  sees 
Luther's  point  of  view.  His  procedure  is  subjec- 
tive and  partial  in  high  degree.  And  yet  Luther's 
thought  is  entirely  sound  in  one  main  particular. 
It  is  entirely  sound  in  its  reassertion  of  the  truth 
which  the  Middle  Age  had  almost  wholly  lost, 
and  which  classical  Protestantism  again  forgot,  the 
truth,  namely,  that  some  books  are  inspired  in 
higher  degree  than  are  others.  Astonishing  is 
the  accuracy  with  which,  although  Luther's  criti- 
cism sets  out  from  an  entirely  different  point  of 
view  from  that  of  the  ancients,  he  yet  fixes  upon 
the  same  books  to  which  the  ancient  church  had 
raised  objection  in  its  time. 

Zwingli  says  much  the  same  thing  concerning 
the  Apocalypse.2  It  is  not  Biblical;  there  is  no 
edification  in  it;  he  did  not  understand  it.  He 
noted  the  wildness  of  the  faith  and  life  of  those 

1  Luther,  Schluss  der  Vorrede  zur  Ubersetzung  d.  N.  T.'s  von 
IS22'  This  conclusion  to  the  preface  was  suppressed  in  later  edi- 
tions.    See  Luther's  Werke,  ed.  Erlangen,  Bd.  Ixiii.  pp.  154-170. 

2  Zwingli's  Werke,  ed.  Schuler  u.  Schultheiss,  ii.  i.  p.  169, 
Religionsgesprdch  zu  Bern,  1528. 


THE   RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION       1 99 

who  gave  themselves  up  too  much  to  the  effort 
to  understand  it.  Calvin,  also,  though  moved  less 
by  feeling  and  more  by  a  sense  for  history,  deemed 
Second  and  Third  John  and  the  Apocalypse  of 
doubtful  authenticity.^  Second  Peter,  he  says, 
is  unquestionably  not  by  Peter.  And  Hebrews 
is  not  by  Paul,  although  for  its  rehgious  worth 
it  is  a  thousand  times  worthy  of  its  place  in  the 
Canon.  Even  Carlstadt,  who  had  begun  the 
scholastic  development  of  the  high  Protestant 
theory  of  inspiration,  yet  in  a  book  written  in 
1520  distinguishes  three  classes  of  New  Testament 
writings  :  first,  those  of  greatest  dignity  and  worth, 
like  the  four  Gospels ;  then  those  of  a  secondary 
character,  like  the  Acts  and  the  thirteen  Pauline 
Epistles  ;  and  thirdly,  those  of  least  authority  and 
significance,  like  Hebrews  and  the  Apocalypse 
and  the  five  minor  cathoHc  Epistles.^  The  purpose 
of  this  discrimination  was  to  minimize  the  effect  of 
critical  assertions  which  could  not  be  disputed,  con- 
cerning these  books,  by  declaring  that  the  books 
were,  in  any  case,  of  minor  consequence.  And  yet 
the  very  doctrine  of  mechanical  and  oracular  in- 
spiration for  which  Carlstadt  was  so  zealous  surely 
admits  of  no  such  division  and  gradation  of  in- 
spired writings  as  he  has  here  announced.  Beza, 
who  died  in  1605,  seems  to  have  been  the  last 
man  of  that  age  in  the  Calvinistic  churches  who, 

1  On  Calvin,  see  Credner,  Ztir  Gesch.  d.  Kanons,  2,12,  f.;   Berger, 
La  bible  au  seizievie  siecle,  1879,  p.  115  f. 

2  Carlstadt,  Libellus  de  Can.  Script.,  ij20,  in  Credner,  p.  291. 


200      THE    RENAISSANCE   AND   THE    REFORMATION 

as  a  devout  and  thoroughgoing  Protestant,  per- 
mitted himself  to  doubt  the  authenticity  of  certain 
New  Testament  books.  In  the  Lutheran  church, 
because,  no  doubt,  of  the  extravagant  veneration 
for  Luther  himself,  and  in  the  recollection  of  some 
of  his  vigorous  utterances,  the  spirit  which  allowed 
itself  criticism  from  the  religious  point  of  view 
lived  on  a  little  longer.  At  least  men  allowed 
themselves  to  make  the  same  criticisms  which 
Luther  had  made.  Their  confidence  that  every- 
thing that  Luther  had  said  must  have  been  true, 
blinded  them  to  the  fact  that  such  discriminations 
as  those  which  Luther  had  made  were  impossible 
under  their  own  theory  of  inspiration.  What  should 
have  been  proved  to  them  was  that  Luther  held  no 
such  theory  of  inspiration.  But  still,  in  the  end, 
even  these  reminiscences  failed.  Under  the  dogma 
men  could  draw  no  inferences  from  them. 

The  Protestant  confessions,  as,  for  example,  the 
Thirty-nine  Articles  of  the  Church  of  England, 
the  Galilean  Articles,  the  Belgic  Confession,  and 
the  Westminster  Confession,  were  content  simply 
to  enumerate  the  traditional  series  of  books.  The 
Lutheran  Confessions  referred  to  them  without 
enumerating  them.  The  authors  of  these  con- 
fessions avoided  in  the  main  the  expression  of 
critical  opinions  current  in  their  times,  and  inter- 
posed therefore  no  obstacles  of  this  sort  to  the  ad- 
vance of  investigation  in  the  several  communions. 
On  the  other  hand,  the  ban  of  a  fixed  theory  of 
inspiration  was  not  felt  in   the  Roman  Catholic 


THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION      201 

church  in  the  same  degree  as  among  the  Protes- 
tants. Men  like  Richard  Simon,  who  died  in 
1712,  and  Ellies  du  Pin,  who  died  in  1719,  kept 
aUve  in  France  the  sense  for  certain  great  distinc- 
tions. In  the  Lutheran  church  J.  D.  Michaelis, 
in  Gottingen,  and  Semler  in  Halle,  who  died  in 
1 79 1,  were  the  real  beginners  of  the  modern  move- 
ment. The  great  contribution  has  been  made  since 
1835.  But,  for  a  reason  which  we  shall  presently 
state,  the  discussion  of  this  modern  movement  does 
not  fall  within  the  plan  which  we  have  set  our- 
selves. 

The  reopening  of  the  whole  question  of  the 
Canon  in  our  day,  the  thoroughgoing  revision  of 
all  materials  which  are  involved,  cannot  have  for 
its  issue  the  alteration  of  the  outline  of  the  New 
Testament  or  the  denial  of  its  significance  as  an 
historic  or  again  as  a  religious  magnitude.  For  us 
the  New  Testament  Canon  is  just  that.  It  is  an 
historic  magnitude  with  a  specific  relation  to  the 
Christian  church  and  of  the  Christian  church  to 
it.  It  is  a  body  of  literature  of  incomparable  worth 
to  the  religious  life  of  the  world  and  to  our  own 
religious  life.  And  one  thing  has  grown  entirely 
clear  to  the  men  of  our  generation  which  was  not 
clear  to  the  ancients,  nor  even  to  all  of  the  Reform- 
ers. The  right  of  a  given  book  to  a  place  in  the 
collection,  its  spiritual  authority,  and  the  signifi- 
cance of  that  book  for  the  Hfe  of  the  world,  are  not 
necessarily  involved  with  the  question  of  the  vaHd- 
ity  of  opinions  which  have  been   expressed   con- 


202       THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION 

cerning  its  authorship,  its  time  and  circumstance. 
Concerning  these  points  it  is  the  function  of  criti- 
cism to  inquire.  The  ancients  often  asserted,  and 
modern  men  may  have  repeated,  that  a  given  book 
obtained  its  place  and  exerts  its  power  because  it 
was  of  such  and  such  authorship.  Our  study  in 
these  lectures  has  put  us  in  sure  possession  of  the 
fact  that  the  case  was  often  just  the  reverse.  The 
men  asserted  the  apostoHc  authorship  of  a  book  be- 
cause they  felt  its  power.  We  may  acknowledge 
in  reference  to  our  collection  of  New  Testament 
books,  that  not  all  of  the  later  and  minor  decisions 
concerning  it  were  equally  fortunate  with  the  earlier 
ones.  The  decisions  reached  after  the  movement 
had  attained  the  period  of  self-consciousness  are 
the  questionable  ones.  But  in  the  origin  of  the 
New  Testament  the  real  case  was  this.  In  the 
large,  the  books  took  their  place  in  the  Christian 
movement  on  the  basis  of  recognition  of  their 
unique  religious  worth.  They  ministered  beyond 
all  other  writings  to  the  spiritual  Hfe.  In  Cole- 
ridge's phrase  they  ''  found  "  men.  They  brought 
to  men  something  at  least  of  that  incomparable 
spirit  of  truth  and  grace  which  had  been  in  Jesus 
Christ.  They  partook  of  his  revelation.  They 
were  steeped  in  his  inspiration.  This  was  the 
power  which  men  felt.  This  was  the  authority 
which  they  conceded.  Explanations  of  that  power 
and  theories  of  that  authority  they  offered  later. 

It  has  been  so  ever  since.     The  book  has  proved 
its  religious  worth  and  exerted  its  spiritual  power 


THE    RENAISSANCE   AND   THE   REFORMATION      203 

in  all  ages,  and  under  apprehensions  which  have 
differed  widely  from  our  own.  It  proves  that 
worth  to-day  among  men  who  would  dissent  most 
gravely  in  their  theory  of  Scripture  from  our- 
selves. But  the  time  is  past  when  men  would 
deem  that  any  critical  conclusion  whatsoever  could 
alter  by  so  much  as  one  book  the  compass  of  the 
collection.  No  modern  inquirer  imagines  that  the 
results  of  any  investigation  whatsoever  could  change 
the  relation  of  the  Christian  church  to  this  collec- 
tion or  impair  the  debt  to  it  of  religious  men.  The 
New  Testament  is  what  it  is.  It  is  a  fixed  magni- 
tude. And  only  the  mistaken  assertion  that  those 
parts  of  it  in  which  the  inspiration  is  feeble  and 
almost  vanishes  are  of  equal  ethical  and  religious 
moment  with  those  in  which  it  is  most  sublime, 
could  tempt  any  man  to  wish  those  weaker  parts 
removed.  Only  the  fatal  inversion  of  ideas  which 
leads  men  to  rest  the  faith  of  Scripture  upon  criti- 
cal hypotheses,  rather  than  to  add  their  hypotheses 
to  their  faith,  can  jeopardize  the  matter.  It  is  in- 
deed of  supreme  importance  that  we  should  inves- 
tigate the  history  of  the  Canon,  in  order  that, 
knowing  how  our  New  Testament  grew  up,  we 
may  know  how  we  are  to  understand  its  real 
nature  and  authority.  But  it  is  exactly  this  in- 
vestigation which  reveals  to  us  that,  as  we  above 
implied,  the  history  of  the  New  Testament  Canon 
is  closed.  The  contribution  of  the  nineteenth  cen- 
tury in  this  department,  and  that  of  any  criticism 
which  is  conceivable  in  the  future,  must,  henceforth. 


204      THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION 

be  a  contribution  only  to  the  history  of   opinion 
concerning  the  Canon. 

Wonderful  is  the  degree  in  which  even  private 
devotional  use  of  the  New  Testament  literature 
sustains  that  thought  concerning  its  inspiration  and 
authority  which  we  have  here  put  forth,  and  illumi- 
nates the  history  which  in  these  lectures  we  have 
been  following.  An  actual  setting  of  all  New 
Testament  books  on  the  same  level  of  importance 
has  never  been  achieved.  The  Apocalypse  never 
signified  so  much  to  the  church  as  did  the  Romans. 
And  this  was  not  at  all  because  of  the  critical 
objections  to  the  Apocalypse.  Men  concurred  in 
that  judgment  who  knew  nothing  about  the  critical 
objections.  It  was  because,  with  the  exception  of 
a  few  glorious  Christian  passages,  the  content  and 
quality  of  the  Apocalypse,  its  spirit,  made  no 
appeal  to  them.  In  their  devotional  reading  of 
the  book  they  read  mainly,  or  only,  those  pas- 
sages. Not  all  the  critical  difficulties  touching  the 
Fourth  Gospel  have  impaired  the  fact  that,  of  all 
the  Gospels,  this  is  the  one  which,  to  this  day, 
most  appeals  to  the  religious  life  of  men.  Of  all 
the  Gospels  it  is  the  one  whose  loss  for  the  spirit- 
ual life  would  be  most  keenly  felt.  The  catholic 
Epistles  never  meant  so  much  as  the  Pauhne. 
And  of  the  Pauline  Epistles,  the  ones  for  certain 
parts  of  which,  critically,  the  weakest  case  can  be 
made  out,  namely  the  Pastorals,  in  certain  other 
parts  hold  the  deepest  love  of  Christians,  since 
they  seem  to  reveal  most  of  the  saintly  and  heroic 


THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION       205 

spirit  of  that  man  who  won  the  Gentile  world. 
Upon  whatever  form  of  evidence  you  choose  to 
think,  citation  of  proof  texts,  the  choice  for  read- 
ing in  public  worship  or  again  in  private  devotion, 
the  difference  in  the  actual  use  of  New  Testament 
books  is  enormous.  The  Gospels,  which  were  the 
earhest  part  of  the  Canon,  are  read  probably  a  hun- 
dred times  as  much  as  any  of  the  letters.  Least 
read  are  those  very  books,  with  the  exception  per- 
haps only  of  the  Hebrews,  which  were  latest  added 
to  the  Canon.  No  theory  of  inspiration  has  even 
been  able  to  do  away  with  the  fact  that  men  have 
found  some  books  more  edifying  than  others.  The 
normal  inference  is  that  those  books  which  are  the 
most  inspiring  are  the  most  inspired. 

In  closing  now  our  study  of  this  part  of  the 
wonderful  movement  which  ended  in  giving  to  the 
world  our  sacred  Book,  one  thing  should  be  said. 
We  have  dealt  with  those  facts  only  which  pertain 
to  the  human  origin  and  history  of  the  Book.  The 
facts  pertaining  to  the  divine  side  of  the  Book,  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  case,  have  no  history  which 
admits  of  presentation  like  that  which  we  have 
here  essayed.  It  is  with  the  Book  which  is  born 
of  the  Spirit  as  it  is  with  the  man  who  is  born  of 
the  Spirit.  "Thou  hearest  the  sound,  .  .  .  but 
canst  not  tell  whence  it  cometh  nor  whither  it 
goeth."  But  a  moment's  reflection  will  show  that, 
in  our  whole  study,  we  have  never  penetrated  the 
mystery  of  that  which  must  yet  be  postulated  to 


206      THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION 

account  for  the  holy  and  wonderful  influence  which 
the  Book  has  always  exerted,  and  does  now  exert, 
upon  the  mind  and  life  of  the  race.  On  the  con- 
trary, the  more  we  have  succeeded  in  penetrating 
the  veil  of  false  mystery  which  historic  remote- 
ness in  part,  and  in  part  dogmatic  misconception, 
have  thrown  about  the  origin  of  the  Book,  the 
more  we  have  succeeded  in  bringing  the  facts,  in 
all  of  their  amazing  simplicity,  into  the  clear  light 
of  day,  just  so  much  the  more  impressive  and 
mysterious  does  the  influence  which  we  have 
spoken  of  appear.  Just  so  much  the  more  im- 
possible does  it  become  for  us  to  feel  that  that 
influence  can  be  accounted  for  in  any  other  way 
than  by  our  owning  that  there  is  here  something 
more  than  that  which  is  merely  human. 

But  many  men  and  women  have  lost  their  faith 
in  the  inspiration  and  authority  of  the  Book  be- 
cause they  construe  differently  that  inspiration,  and 
have  penetrated  some  of  the  assumptions  upon 
which  that  authority  has  been  supposed  to  rest. 
Here,  as  so  often  in  the  history  of  religion,  men 
have  felt,  by  a  certain  primitive  instinct  and  with 
irrefragable  force,  a  given  truth.  But  then  they 
have  proceeded  to  offer  the  most  far-fetched  and 
external,  the  least  cogent  and  defensible,  of  reasons 
for  their  conviction  of  that  truth.  Or  they  offer 
to  a  new  age  reasons  which  are  germane  only  to 
the  thinking  of  an  age  which  has  gone  by.  In 
their  own  devout  imagination,  they  put  these  argu- 
ments as  basis  under  the  great  truth.     And  all  the 


THE    RENAISSANCE   AND    THE    REFORMATION      20/ 

while,  it  is  not  the  argument  which  accounts  for 
their  impression,  but  the  invincible  impression 
which  accounts  for  all  the  argument.  It  is  not,  as 
they  fondly  imagine,  by  these  arguments  that 
they  can  convey  their  impression  to  new  minds 
and  other  ages.  The  impression  conveys  itself. 
God's  truth  demonstrates  itself  ever  afresh,  and 
moves  new  men  and  brings  forth  new  argumenta- 
tion as  the  ages  change. 

But  when  the  arguments  which  have  passed 
current  and  done  service  crumble,  it  is  pathetic 
to  see  men's  bewilderment  and  pain.  Then  comes 
the  perception  that  the  truth  has  not  crumbled.  It 
has  not  lost  its  power  and  adaptation.  It  may  be 
in  the  very  act  of  asserting  a  new  power  and  as- 
suming a  new  adaptation.  It  is  then  most  glorious 
when  the  supports  by  which  devoted  men  sought 
to  prop  it  are  all  fallen  away.  New  men  will 
love  it  and  new  might  will  go  forth  from  it. 
Always  in  deep  religious  things  this  process  must 
repeat  itself.  Always  this  lesson  must  be  learned 
afresh.  And  always  it  is  as  hard  as  if  it  had 
never  been  learned  before.  Always  in  deep  re- 
ligious matters  we  have  to  go  down  beneath  what 
we  rashly  call  the  foundations  of  the  truth,  and 
there  discover  that  the  truth  is  the  foundation. 
The  thing  we  built  upon  it  was  but  superstructure 
for  our  own  abiding.  It  is  but  bare  scaffold,  and 
perhaps  not  even  that,  for  men  who  will  come 
after  us  and  in  whom  God's  truth  will  still 
abide. 


208      THE    RENAISSANCE   AND   THE    REFORMATION 

But,  as  we  were  saying,  men  have  found  cer- 
tain assumptions  which  have  long  been  made 
touching  the  Book  to  be  false,  or  at  least  inade- 
quate, and  so  they  have  lost  faith  in  the  Book. 
They  have  lost  the  influence  of  the  Book  out  of 
their  lives.  This  is  very  illogical,  no  doubt.  But 
it  is  very  natural.  It  is  to  those  who  in  the  edu- 
cated life  of  our  time  are  bound  to  feel  the  stress, 
that  these  lectures  are  addressed.  No  men  are 
so  much  interested  in  knowing  the  truth  about 
the  Scripture  as  those  of  us  who  believe  in  it. 
Nothing  goes  so  far  to  rehabilitate  the  Book  in 
the  reverence  and  love  of  thoughtful  people  as 
the  fearless  study  of  it  and  of  all  that  pertains  to 
it,  by  those  same  methods  which  in  other  sciences 
have  proved  successful. 

We  mourn  sometimes  the  loss  of  the  hold  of 
Scripture  upon  the  mind  and  Hfe  of  our  genera- 
tion. It  would  be  idle  to  allege  that  the  sole  cause 
of  that  loss  is  that  the  change  of  men's  thoughts 
concerning  the  Scripture  has  lagged  behind  the 
reconstruction  of  men's  ideas  on  all  other  sub- 
jects through  which  our  generation  has  passed. 
It  is  a  fact  that  the  reconstruction  of  the  thought 
of  many  men  concerning  Scripture  has  thus  lagged 
behind.  But  it  would  be  idle  to  allege  this  as  the 
sole  cause  of  the  diminished  power  of  Scripture 
in  men's  lives  of  which  we  spoke.  There  are 
many  other  causes.  But  not  all  of  the  devout 
among  us  realize,  and  not  all  of  the  bewildered 
will   believe,   how  far  the   chaos   of   notions   has 


THE    RENAISSANCE    AND    THE    REFORMATION      2O9 

taken  shape  and  order,  how  certain  much  is  where 
some  have  felt  that  everything  was  uncertain. 

Of  no  department  of  learning  is  this  remark 
more  true  than  of  that  of  the  study  of  the  Scripture. 
It  is  a  great  gain  that  we  have  been  led  on  to  a 
theory  of  Scripture  which  is  in  absolutely  harmon- 
ious adjustment  with  the  theories  which  modern 
men  must  hold  concerning  all  things  besides.  It  is 
not  that,  in  the  blinding  light  of  scientific  cer- 
tainty upon  some  of  these  things,  that  sense  of 
mystery  has  vanished  wherein,  after  all,  religion 
has  her  home.  It  is  only  that  the  lines  which 
lead  off  into  the  depths  of  that  unfathomed  light 
are  the  sure  straight  lines  of  that  which  is  abso- 
lutely rational  and  natural,  so  far  as  the  vision 
which  we  now  have  can  follow  up  those  lines.  It 
is  but  the  inference  from  history,  as  well  as  the 
experience  of  reHgion,  that  the  Book  has  within 
it  the  power  to  meet  the  highest  wants  of  the 
highest  Ufe  of  our  generation.  It  has  been  so  in 
all  generations.  It  will  be  so  until  by  faithful  use 
of  this  light  which  God  has  given  us  we  come  to 
God's  better  and  greater  light. 


LECTURE   VI 

THE  CANONIZATION  AND  THE  ORIGIN 
OF  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 


LECTURE   VI 

THE  CANONIZATION  AND  THE  ORIGIN 
OF  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

We  have  spoken  thus  far  in  these  lectures  of 
the  origin  and  growth  of  that  collection  of  the 
literature  of  early  Christianity  which  we  know 
under  the  name  of  the  New  Testament.  We  need 
now  to  stand  apart  a  little  from  this  movement, 
to  set  it  in  what  appears  to  be  its  true  light. 
The  remarkable  development  which  we  have  en- 
deavored to  trace,  the  evolution  of  a  simple  liter- 
ature into  an  authoritative  Canon,  is  then  first 
really  understood  when  it  is  seen  in  the  light  of 
parallel  developments  which  took  place  in  the  same 
age.  It  has  been  said  that  all  the  great  intellectual 
and  spiritual  phenomena  of  a  given  era  may  safely 
be  assumed  to  be  but  the  manifestations  of  a  com- 
mon impulse,  which  pervades  and  possesses  the 
minds  of  the  men  of  that  era.  But  there  are  two 
main  comparisons  which  in  this  and  in  the  follow- 
ing lecture  we  shall  need  to  institute.  We  shall 
discern  that  that  movement  with  which  we  have 
thus  far  been  dealing  is  only  a  part  of  a  far 
greater  movement.  Not  less  illuminating  than  the 
discovery  that  the  New  Testament  has  a  history 
such  as  that  which  we  have  tried  to  sketch,  is  the 

213 


214   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

recognition  that  even  that  history  is  but  the  evi- 
dence of  tendencies  and  the  product  of  causes 
which  had  at  least  two  other  issues  that  are 
hardly  less  wonderful  than  the  one  which  we  have 
named.  Nothing  in  the  life  of  the  race  is  isolated, 
just  as  nothing  in  our  own  personal  experience 
stands  apart  and  out  of  relation  to  all  other  things. 
The  causes  at  work  in  any  significant  transition 
often  work  more  broadly  than  we  had  at  first  sup- 
posed. They  have  other  consequences,  which  we 
presently  discover  to  be  closely  allied  to  those 
upon  which  we  have  dwelt.  The  discovery  of 
these  relationships  in  other  quarters  often  throws  a 
flood  of  light  upon  the  facts  before  us  in  our  own. 
In  this  way,  therefore,  of  pendant  and  illus- 
tration we  shall  endeavor,  with  all  possible  com- 
pression, to  allude  to  two  things  which  are  in 
their  growth  most  striking  counterparts  of  the  New 
Testament.  These  are,  namely,  the  beginnings 
of  church  government  and  the  earliest  stages  of 
the  development  of  Christian  doctrine.  Were  the 
materials  for  investigation  less  scant  than  they 
are,  and  were  the  study  of  such  materials  as  we 
have  in  more  forward  state  than  it  is,  we  should 
probably  discover  that  the  parallel  holds  in  ref- 
erence to  the  forms  of  Christian  ritual  as  well. 
The  epoch  in  which  the  spontaneous  outpouring 
of  men's  praise  and  their  petitions  first  gave  place 
to  forms  of  worship,  established  for  the  aid  and 
training  of  the  multitude,  would  probably  be  found 
to  correspond  in  striking  fashion  with  that  of  the 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   21 5 

first  crystallizing  into  confessional  forms  of  the 
free  doctrinal  thinking  of  the  earlier  age,  with  that 
of  the  consolidation  in  the  episcopal  government  of 
the  simpler  order  of  the  early  churches,  and  with 
that  of  the  differentiation  of  the  New  Testament 
from  the  remainder  of  the  early  literature.  But 
that  is  a  problem  which  has  not  yet  been  suffi- 
ciently worked  out. 

We  cannot  heartily  adhere  to  the  historic  evolu- 
tion of  Scripture,  without  holding  to  the  evolu- 
tion of  church  government,  and  of  doctrine  and 
ritual  as  well.  Or,  rather,  inasmuch  as  we,  in 
common  with  most  men  since  the  Reformation, 
do  hold  to  the  evolution  of  church  government, 
from  the  simplest  and  most  natural  beginnings  in 
the  time  of  the  Apostles  to  the  great  structure 
and  colossal  organization  which  in  the  Middle 
Ages  overshadowed  all  the  world ;  and  since,  if  we 
ever  thought  of  it,  we  do  hold  to  the  growth  of  the 
great  historic  forms  of  worship,  we  cannot  there- 
fore consistently  do  otherwise  than  hold  to  the  his- 
toric development  of  Scripture  and  of  dogma  as 
well.  We  do  but  bring  to  bear  to-day  upon  the 
Scripture  the  same  criticism  which  the  Reformers 
employed  so  justly  and  effectively  upon  the  tradition 
of  the  church  four  hundred  years  ago.  We  do 
but  vindicate  ourselves  the  children  of  their  spirit. 
And  surely  a  far  nobler  and  more  vital  conception 
of  the  church  has  come  through  the  criticism  which 
in  the  Reformation  was  applied  to  the  traditional 
theory  of  the  church. 


2l6   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

This  is  true  as  to  dogma.  The  confessions, 
whatever  be  their  names,  to  which  men  give  their 
assent,  have  tended  to  become  to  the  Protestant 
church  exactly  what  the  tradition  is  to  the  Roman 
church.  It  has  been  made  in  the  Protestant  polemic 
a  standing  reproach  to  the  Roman  Catholic  church 
that  it  rests  upon  the  Scripture  and  upon  the  tradi- 
tion. It  has  been  deemed  the  fame  of  the  Protes- 
tant churches  that  they  rest  upon  the  Scripture 
alone.  But  this  contention  can  scarcely  be  main- 
tained. In  the  name  of  creeds  and  confessions, 
from  the  Apostles'  Creed  down  to  the  confessions 
of  our  own  time,  the  attempt  has  been  made  to  fix 
an  authoritative  interpretation  of  Scripture,  and  to 
praise  or  to  blame  men  as  they  accord  or  disagree 
with  that  interpretation.  But  assuredly  this  is  only 
traditionalism  over  again.  Indeed,  one  may  say 
that  the  Roman  tradition  has  this  advantage,  that 
it  receives  its  utterance,  in  the  concrete  case,  from 
living  men.  Confessionalism  tends  to  confer  the 
power  of  the  authoritative  interpretation  of  Scrip- 
ture only  upon  men  who  are  dead.  We  have  passed 
through  a  period  of  abuse  of  doctrine,  and  of  the 
assumption  upon  the  part  of  some  that  we  can  get 
on  without  doctrine.  But  this  is  merely  reaction 
against  an  unhistoric  notion  of  the  nature  of  doc- 
trine. Doctrine  is  nothing  but  the  adjustment  of 
men's  thoughts  concerning  religion  to  their  thoughts 
concerning  all  other  things.  That  adjustment  is  a 
perennially  necessary  task.  The  attempt  to  hold 
our  thoughts  concerning  religion  out  of  all  relation 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   21/ 

to  our  Other  thoughts  is  the  sure  road  by  which  men, 
according  to  temperament,  arrive  at  one  of  two 
conditions.  They  end  either  in  having  thoughts 
without  any  rehgion  or  else  in  having  rehgion 
without  thoughts.  Either  condition  is  deplorable. 
There  are  signs  that  we  are  on  the  eve  of  a  noble 
reconstruction  of  Christian  doctrine.  That  recon- 
struction-is made  possible  by  the  clear  historic  sense 
which  we  have  gained  as  to  what  doctrine  is. 

So  is  it  also  as  to  Scripture.  It  was  not  unnatu- 
ral that  the  men  of  four  hundred  years  ago  should 
set  up  against  the  authority  of  an  infallible  church 
an  authority  of  Scripture  which  they  soon  came  to 
apprehend  in  an  almost  equally  external  way.  Those 
men  could  not  have  done  differently.  Their  theory 
of  Scripture  had  a  certain  historic  inevitableness 
and  a  great  historic  right.  But  they  did  not 
perceive  that  the  light  of  history,  and  that  right 
reasoning  upon  history  which  they  so  successfully 
applied  to  the  prevaihng  theory  of  the  authority  of 
the  church,  would  one  day  have  its  way  with  the 
idea  of  an  external  authority  of  Scripture  as  well. 
It  ought  to  be  repeated,  to  the  honor  of  the  first 
generation  of  the  Reformers,  that  they  began  thus 
to  reason  upon  the  problem.  There  is  something 
pathetic  in  the  defection  of  the  later  generations 
of  Protestants  from  this  true  example  of  the  Re- 
formers. The  authority  of  Scripture,  when  thought 
of  as  something  external  and  not  subject  to  rational 
review,  has  come  near  to  being  as  great  a  tyranny 
and  source  of  darkness  as  was  ever  the  authority 


2l8   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

of  the  church.  But,  as  we  have  seen,  the  most  vital 
and  potent  conception  of  Scripture  has  been  re- 
gained for  us,  the  most  reverent  and  worshipful 
acknowledgment  of  the  authority  of  Scripture  has 
been  again  made  possible  for  us,  exactly  through 
the  historic  sense  of  what  the  Christian  Scripture 
really  is. 

So  is  it  also  as  to  the  church.  It  has  been  the 
weakness  of  Protestantism  that  having,  four  hun- 
dred years  ago,  abandoned  a  theory  of  the  church 
and  of  ecclesiastical  authority  which  it  deemed  un- 
historical,  it  had  nothing  adequate  to  put  in  its 
place.  It  was  well  to  repeat  the  maxim  of  individ- 
ualism, but  we  have  discovered  that  individualism  is 
not  the  whole  truth.  The  social  instinct  of  our  time 
is  fundamental.  The  immeasurable  forces  of  our 
generation  are  those  of  combination,  integration, 
organization.  An  institution  which  cannot  aug- 
ment its  efficiency  by  obedience  to  these  principles 
is  doomed.  The  primary  impulse  of  Protestantism 
at  this  moment  is  to  find  its  way  out  of  that  dis- 
organization and  rampant  individualism  of  which 
it  was  once  so.  proud.  There  are  not  wanting  those 
whose  trust  is  that  the  way  out  is  the  way  back, 
the  way  of  recurrence  to  that  ideal  of  the  church 
and  of  its  authority  which  ten  generations  ago  was 
given  up.  But  even  those  to  whom  this  is  not  clear 
well  know  that  principles  which  have  been  neg- 
lected must  be  brought  again  into  effective  use. 
And  to  this  revival  of  the  feeling  for  the  Christian 
church,  as  church,  before  which  we  surely  stand, 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   219 

no  greater  service  can  be  rendered  than  that  which 
comes  through  the  recovery  of  the  true  historic 
sense  of  what  the  principle  of  organization  of  the 
Christian  church  really  is. 

It  need  not  be  said  that  it  is  not  the  effort  of 
these  two  lectures,  on  the  origin  of  church  govern- 
ment, and  on  the  beginnings  of  the  history  of  doc- 
trine, to  maintain  proportion  with  that  treatment 
of  the  Canon  which  we  have  thus  far  attempted. 
The  purpose  of  these  lectures  is  merely  that  of 
illustration.  The  thing  designed  is  to  show  yet 
more  fully  the  significance  of  the  movement  which 
marked  the  last  generation  of  the  second  century, 
and  to  remind  ourselves  that  we  cannot  understand 
the  New  Testament  if  we  seek  to  understand  the 
New  Testament  alone.  The  New  Testament  does 
not  stand  alone.  But  for  this  purpose  of  illustra- 
tion only  the  outline  of  the  discussion  is  necessary. 
Details  must  be  gathered  from  works  which  make 
government  and  dogma  their  immediate  theme. 

We  assume  that  Jesus  instituted  no  form  of 
church  government  whatever.  The  Apostles  insti- 
tuted only  the  most  rudimentary  forms.  Their 
arrangements  were  not  in  all  cases  the  same. 
These  arrangements  they  themselves  regarded  as 
subject  to  amendment,  and  not  binding  in  the  let- 
ter, but  only  in  the  spirit,  upon  future  time;  if 
indeed  their  thought  in  making  any  such  arrange- 
ment turned  seriously  to  the  future  time.  Even  if 
Christ  and  the  Apostles  had  elaborated  forms  of 
church  government,  these  would  be  binding  upon 


220   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

US,  not  in  the  letter,  but  only  in  the  spirit  of  those 
forms.  The  very  adaptations  which  then  made 
them  efficient  would  make  them  inoperative  if  taken 
in  all  literalness  now.  The  permanent  element  in 
a  religious  institution  can  never  be  anything  but  its 
spirit.  The  practical  adaptations  and  adjustments, 
the  applications  of  that  spirit,  must  be  mere  tem- 
porary contrivances.  When  these  forms  are  per- 
petuated as  if  they  were  the  substance  of  the 
matter,  they  become  hindrances  and  not  helps. 
They  become  the  very  instruments  of  bondage  and 
the  antithesis  of  inspiration.  The  form  of  church 
government  and  of  worship  given  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, which  Jesus  certainly  deemed  to  have 
been  inspired,  he  himself  criticised  from  this  point 
of  view.  Had  there  been  an  apostolic  form  of 
church  government  promulgated  with  authority 
from  the  first,  we  should  still  have  to  seek  to 
gather  out  the  divine  principles  from  those  old 
adjustments  and  to  apply  them  again  in  our  own 
time.  That  to  which  men  attribute  divineness  they 
have  ordinarily  conceived  as  if  it  had  come  into  ex- 
istence in  its  finished,  perfect  state.  They  cannot 
think  of  its  perpetuating  itself  save  as  unchanged 
from  age  to  age.  To  other  minds  the  divinest  of 
all  things  is  the  mystery  of  growth.  To  such  minds 
it  is  not  a  less  divine  institution,  but  it  is,  if  possible, 
a  more  divine  institution,  doctrine,  Scripture,  which 
we  see  working  upon  the  principle  of  the  leaven 
and  growing  up  like  the  mustard  seed  to  which  our 
Lord  compared  his  kingdom  at  the  first. 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   221 

To  the  men  who  gathered  about  Jesus  no  con- 
trol was  necessary  save  that  of  his  personality. 
The  authority  which  the  Apostles  exerted  in  the 
earhest  churches,  though  beyond  question  very 
great,  was  yet  assuredly  of  this  same  personal 
sort.  It  came  from  their  being  the  witnesses  of 
Jesus  and  the  teachers  of  a  truth  till  then  unknown. 
When  they  departed  from  their  little  missionary 
churches  they  sometimes  left  friends  or  pupils  to 
carry  on  their  work.  Sometimes  they  maintained 
correspondence  with  those  churches.  It  has  been 
common  among  scholars  of  the  last  few  decades 
to  assert  that  the  earliest  Christians  were  guided 
in  the  ordering  of  their  simple  affairs  by  the 
models  of  institutions  about  them  in  the  Jew- 
ish and  in  the  Gentile  world.  But  we  shall  see 
that  there  was  also  an  inward  principle  operative 
in  the  growing  organization,  which  was  original 
with  the  Christian  body  and  characteristic  in  a 
high  degree.  We  may  grant  in  largest  measure 
the  effect  of  such  external  influences  as  those  just 
alluded  to.  But  the  growth  of  the  Christian  insti- 
tution is  by  no  means  accounted  for  through  the 
mere  imitation  of  the  synagogue,  or,  again,  of  the 
guilds  and  societies  of  the  Gentile  world.  Doubt- 
less, to  an  observer  in  those  earliest  generations 
who  viewed  the  Christian  movement  from  without, 
it  might  have  seemed  as  if  these  nascent  Christian 
societies  managed  their  little  interests  and  framed 
their  organization  upon  the  pattern  of  other  reli- 
gious societies  and  of  the  social  bodies  which  pre- 


222   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

vailed  about  them.  The  names  of  functionaries, 
and  indeed  almost  all  the  terms  involved  in  the 
discussion  of  the  earliest  church  government,  are 
unquestionably  thus  derived  from  the  Jewish  reli- 
gious organizations  and  from  Gentile  societies 
which  had  only  in  part  religious  purposes.  In 
the  reaction  from  the  long  ages  in  which  men  in- 
sisted that  the  origin  of  church  government  was 
all  divine,  and  spoke  as  if  its  order  had  been  virtu- 
ally let  down  out  of  heaven,  we  have  passed 
through  a  period  in  which  men  have  seen  little 
but  the  human  element  that  beyond  question  en- 
tered into  it.  They  reckoned  with  nothing  but 
the  contribution  which  was  made  to  the  evolving 
organism  from  its  environment.  That  there  was 
a  contribution  from  the  environment  all  scholars 
admit.  But  that  there  was  a  vital  and  intensely 
characteristic  principle  operative  from  within  and 
from  the  beginning  we  must  confidently  assert. 

First  among  the  external  influences  upon  the 
Christian  body  was  undoubtedly  that  of  the  Jew- 
ish ecclesiastical  organization.  That  the  Jerusa- 
lem Christian  community  stood  under  the  very 
shadow  of  the  synagogal  organization  need  not 
be  said.  And,  here  in  this  Jerusalem  community, 
all  that  we  can  discover  beyond  the  synagogal  or- 
ganization is  a  certain  great  personal  influence 
naturally  accorded  to  representatives  of  the  family 
of  Jesus.  But  everywhere  in  the  Gentile  world 
also  there  were  synagogues,  the  local  communities 
of  the  Jews  in  the  dispersion.     Out    from   these 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   223 

synagogues,  or  from  the  circle  of  their  proselytes, 
the  earliest  Christians  often  came.  Now  the  dis- 
tinctive traits  of  the  synagogal  government  were 
these.  The  control  was  vested  in  a  body  of  men 
known  as  the  elders ;  presbyters  is  the  Greek 
word.  But  these  elders  were  originally  simply  the 
older  men.  One  recalls  the  "  elders  of  Israel." 
They  were  simply  the  heads  of  families.  What 
we  here  have  is  the  survival  of  the  patriarchal  sys- 
tem as  this  was  developed  in  the  Jewish  village 
communities.  The  elders  were  equal  among 
themselves,  but  were  presumed  to  be  fitted  by 
experience  to  advise  and  rule  over  others.  In 
their  common  capacity  they  constituted  a  council 
which  was  presided  over  by  one  of  their  number. 
How  this  presiding  officer  was  chosen,  whether  he 
held  his  office  for  a  fixed  term,  whether  the  honor 
came  to  him  by  seniority,  or  whether  it  passed  in 
some  sort  of  rotation,  these  are  things  which  we 
do  not  clearly  know.  Since  to  the  Jewish  mind 
civil  and  religious  matters  were  not  separated, 
this  communal  power  of  the  synagogue-council, 
even  in  what  we  should  call  secular  matters,  and 
even  after  the  estabhshment  of  the  Roman  domin- 
ion, was  great.  The  supervision  of  the  moral  life, 
and,  to  a  certain  extent,  the  adjustment  of  relations 
of  property,  were  among  the  things  which  might, 
at  least,  be  brought  before  the  elders  and  se- 
cured under  the  sanction  of  the  religious  insti- 
tution rather  than  laid  before  the  hated  foreign 
tribunal.     And,  shut  in  upon  themselves  as  were 


224   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

the  Jewish  communities  in  the  Diaspora,  endowed 
with  extraordinary  privileges  by  the  civil  authority 
as  in  some  cases  we  know  them  to  have  been,  we 
may  doubt  if  the  synagogue  elders  in  the  Diaspora 
had  less  power  than  had  those  in  Palestine.^  On 
the  other  hand,  in  reference  to  the  assemblies  for 
worship,  we  must  note  a  democratic  trait.  It  ap- 
pears to  have  been  the  right  of  every  man  to  read 
or  to  speak  to  edification  in  the  services  of  the 
synagogue.  There  was  no  distinct  class  of  per- 
sons set  apart  to  the  privilege  and  duty  touching 
the  word  of  God.  It  was  not  even  a  function  of 
elders  only  thus  to  speak. 

But  besides  the  synagogue  there  were,  in  the 
second  place,  all  about  the  Christians,  multitudes 
of  societies  of  every  name  and  form  among  the 
Gentiles.  They  varied  widely,  from  purely  phil- 
osophical brotherhoods  to  associations  for  the 
observance  of  some  cult  or  the  performance  of 
some  rite,  and  even  to  mutual  benefit  societies, 
much  like  our  own  insurance  and  burial  societies 
among  the  poor,  the  very  class  among  whom  the 
Gospel  in  the  Gentile  world  at  first  struck  root. 
These  societies  seem  almost  invariably  to  have  had 
one  natural  form  of  organization.  There  was  a 
council,  and  then  a  sort  of  president  for  the  over- 

1  Schiirer,  Geschichte  des  Judischen  Volkes  in  Zeitalter  Jesu 
Christi,  3d  ed.,  1898,  ii.  427  ff.,  iii.  38  f.  (§§  27,  31).  See  also 
Bacher,  art.  '*  Synagogue,"  in  Hastings'  Dictionary  of  the  Bible, 
and  Schiirer,  Die  Gemeindeverfassung  der  Juden  in  Rom  in  der 
Kaiserzeit^  1 879. 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT  22$ 

sight  of  the  society's  affairs.  He  was  called 
episcopus.  Of  this  name  our  word  "bishop"  is  a 
mutilation.  The  title  indicated  merely  the  man 
who  had  oversight.  The  root  from  which  it  is 
derived  means  ''to  oversee."  The  council  had  less 
power  than  in  the  synagogal  government,  but  the 
head  of  the  council  had  more.  He  was  truly  an 
officer,  and  not  merely  the  representative  of  a  class 
to  whom  official  duties  fell.  From  the  literature 
which  refers  to  these  guilds  and  corporations,  and 
from  inscriptions,  especially  from  Asia  Minor, 
which  have  come  to  hand,  one  gets  the  impression 
that  the  episcopus  was  concerned  chiefly  with 
administration,  and  sometimes  almost  wholly  with 
finance.  There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  that  he  was 
generally  elected  by  the  whole  body  whose  prac- 
tical and  executive  functionary  he  thus  became. 
It  is  reasonably  certain,  also,  that  in  such  of  these 
guilds  as  existed  for  the  observance  of  the  mys- 
teries, for  the  performance  of  some  one  of  the  many 
rites  which  came  in  from  the  Orient  at  the  time  of 
which  we  speak,  the  episcopus  had  to  do  with  the 
observance  of  the  solemn  rite.  He  thus  added  a 
religious  leadership  to  the  practical  function  which 
he  performed. 1 

Now  from  one  or  the  other  of  these  sources,  or 
from  both,  from  the  synagogues,  that  is,  and  from 
these  pagan  associations  for  charity  and  worship, 

1  Hatch,  Die    Gesellschaftsverfassung  der  christlichen  Kirchen 
im  AlUrthum^  ubersetzt  u.  mit  Excursen  versehen^  von  Harnack^ 
Giessen,  1883. 
Q 


226   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

Students  have  deemed  that  the  elements  were 
drawn,  as  the  organization  of  the  early  Christian 
church  began  to  shape  itself.  Sometimes  upon 
the  one  side,  and  again,  upon  the  other,  the  pre- 
ponderance has  been  laid.  Few  scholars  now 
share  the  opinion  that  the  organization  of  the 
Christian  church  can  be  explained  entirely  from 
the  synagogue,  and  that  the  Gentile  element  had 
no  weight.!  Careful  investigation,  moreover,  of 
the  history  of  Israel  in  the  time  of  Jesus  has  ren- 
dered us  uncertain  of  some  points  touching  the 
organization  of  the  synagogue  which  were  once 
deemed  to  be  surely  known.^  On  the  other  hand, 
distinguished  scholars,  and  that  only  very  recently, 
have  been  convinced  that  the  relation  of  the  Chris- 
tian church  to  these  Gentile  guilds  and  corpora- 
tions explains  almost  everything.^  The  first 
discoveries  of  these  relations  were  so  interesting 
and  suggestive  that  men  were  somewhat  carried 
away.  But  it  must  not  be  forgotten  that  exactly 
the  religious  ones  among  these  societies  were  often 
guilty,  under  cover  of  their  mysteries,  of  such  abom- 
inations, they  were  often  so  notoriously  immoral, 
that  we  can  hardly  think  that  the  direct  compari- 
son with  these  societies  would  have  brought  to  the 
Christians  anything  but  the  suspicion  of  the  state 
and  the  aversion  of  the  populace. 

1  See,  however,  Loning,  Die  Ge?neuideverfassung  des  Urchristen- 
tkumsy  Halle,  1889. 

2  See  Schiirer,  as  cited  above,  p.  225,  and  Sohm,  Kirchenrecht, 
1892,  p.  10. 

3  See  Hatch-Harnack  in  the  work  cited  above,  p.  225. 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   22/ 

Still,  it  is  generally  thought  that  elements  from 
these  two  sources  were,  in  one  proportion  or  an- 
other, fused  together.  The  usual  theory  has  been 
that  there  existed  in  the  church  at  the  beginning 
two  organizations,  side  by  side,  and  having  but 
little  to  do  the  one  with  the  other.  The  first  of 
these  was  the  growing  organization  of  the  teach- 
ing function,  of  which  Apostles,  prophets,  and 
teachers  were  the  representatives.  This  was  the 
element  derived  from  the  synagogal  order.  The 
other  organization  was  that  of  the  administrative 
function,  particularly  that  of  the  administering  of 
charity.  And  of  this  organization  the  bishop  was 
the  head.  It  was  this  which  represented  the  ele- 
ment drawn  from  the  Gentile  source.  The  origin 
of  the  episcopate  was  thus  held  to  be  essentially 
practical.^  The  bishop  represented  the  people  and 
managed  funds.  It  was  the  apostolic  office,  the 
teaching  function,  which  represented  God  and 
Christ,  and  had  to  do  with  the  word  and  worship. 
It  was  only  as  Apostles  and  prophets  disappeared, 
and  as  the  inspiration  out  of  which  every  member 
spoke  to  edification  waned,  that  the  teaching  func- 
tion also  was  transferred  to  the  bishop,  and  he 
thus  came  to  be  deemed  to  represent  also  the 
Apostles  and  Christ  himself.  This  general  the- 
ory prevailed  until  recently. 

^  See  Ritschl,  Entstehung  der  altkatholischen  Kirchcy  2d  ed.,  1 85 7, 
p.  350 ;  Holtzmann,  Pastoralbriefe,  1880,  p.  216 ;  Weizsacker, 
Apostolisches  Zeitalter,  1886,  p.  630;  Hatch,  Gesellschaftsverfassung, 
pp.  31  and  34.  But  against  this,  see  Harnack,  Apost.  Kirchenord' 
nung,  p.  286,  and  Dogmengeschichte,  Bd.  I.,  1888,  p.  182. 


2  28   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

At  the  present  time  no  one  disputes  that  there 
are  elements  of  truth  in  this  ingenious  construction. 
No  one  denies  that  influences  from  both  sides 
were  felt.  But  few  any  longer  hold  that  in  these 
things  we  have  found  the  secret  of  the  origin 
of  the  Christian  church.  These  influences  were  all 
merely  external  ones.  They  were  too  little  original 
and  characteristic.  The  early  Christian  would 
hardly  have  called  these  influences  divine.  The 
secret  of  the  organization  of  the  Christian  church 
was  certainly  a  Christian  secret  and  not  a  Jewish 
or  pagan  one.  The  real  sources  of  this  organiza- 
tion were  inward  and  spiritual.  The  motive  force 
was  one  which  was  conceived  by  the  Christians 
themselves  with  the  highest  originality.  It  was 
one  which  fired  their  imagination  and  called  out 
their  devotion,  as  nothing  which  was  to  their  minds 
only  an  accommodation  from  the  ancestral  syna- 
gogue or  from  the  pagan  cultus  societies  ever  could 
have  done.  That  organizing  principle  was  nothing 
less  than  the  sense  of  the  divine  in  the  midst  of 
the  Christian  community  in  this  relation  also.  It 
was  nothing  less  than  the  sense  of  that  inspiration 
which  was  the  universal  characteristic  of  the  begin- 
ning of  the  Christian  movement.  It  was  nothing 
less  than  the  belief  in  the  divine  gift,  the  confer- 
ment of  the  grace  of  Jesus  Christ  upon  some  mem- 
bers of  the  community  to  do  this  duty  also,  just  as, 
through  a  divine  gift  and  grace,  they  spoke  to 
their  fellows  the  word  of  life.  It  was  nothing 
less   than  the  belief   in  the  divine  call  of   some 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   229 

men  to  take  upon  themselves  in  the  name  of  God 
the  responsibility  of  practical  leadership,  to  exert 
influence  in  truth  and  love  for  the  ordering  of  the 
affairs  of  the  fellowship  of  beUevers.  It  was  noth- 
ing less  than  the  belief  in  an  enduement  of  men 
with  spiritual  power  to  do  these  things,  which  was 
exactly  parallel  to  the  gift  of  grace  by  which  men  led 
acceptably  the  services  of  worship.  And,  indeed, 
this  practical  service  was  never  separated  from  the 
leadership  in  worship  or,  at  least  in  the  conception 
of  it,  from  the  service  of  the  word.  If  we  should 
put  this  theory  of  the  origin  of  church  govern- 
ment in  paradoxical  form,  we  should  say  that 
an  organization  for  the  government  of  the  church, 
in  the  sense  in  which  we  ordinarily  understand 
those  words  organization  and  government,  in  the 
sense  in  which  we  should  naturally  attribute  rights 
and  powers  to  the  church,  —  such  an  organiza- 
tion was  a  contradiction  of  the  very  essence 
of  Christianity  and  of  the  nature  of  the  church 
itself.i 

There  were  not  those  two  different  tendencies 
to  organization  in  the  Christian  church,  from  the 
beginning,  which  we  have  described  above,  the 
one  being  the  organization  of  the  teaching  office, 
which  rested  solely  upon  the  gift  of  God,  the 
outward  form  of  which  was  derived  from  the 
synagogue ;  while  the  other,  the  organization  for 
practical   administration,    represented    merely   the 

1  See  Sohm,  Kirchenrecht,  1892,  pp.  i  ff.,  and  repeatedly.  Sohm's 
contribution  to  this  discussion  is  epoch-making. 


230   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

rights  and  powers  of  men  and  took  shape  from  the 
pagan  societies.^ 

The  word  of  God  was  originally  preached, 
exhortation  was  given,  prophecy  was  uttered,  by 
any  man  whom  the  Spirit  of  God  moved,  and 
according  to  the  measure  of  grace  bestowed  upon 
him.  Apostles,  prophets,  teachers,  who  exercised 
this  function,  might,  indeed,  themselves  be  members 
of  the  local  community.  Or  they  might  be  mes- 
sengers from  some  other  community.  They  might 
be  men  who  went  from  one  community  to  another, 
making  such  preaching  and  teaching  the  occupa- 
tion of  their  lives.  But  the  essential  thing  was 
the  notion  of  the  call  of  God,  of  the  enduement 
with  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit  thus  to  teach. 
Essential,  also,  was  the  recognition  on  the  part  of 
the  community  that  the  persons  who  thus  spoke 
were  in  reality  called  of  God  and  were  full  of  a 
holy  spirit  for  their  work.  This  has  been  on  all 
hands  acknowledged  as  the  basis  of  the  teaching 
function  in  the  early  church. 

But  we  have  no  cause  whatever  to  assert  that 
the  case  was  different  with  the  executive  function. 
To  the  minds  of  those  earliest  Christians  the  basis 
was  not  different  for  the  duty  of  the  administra- 
tion of  funds,  of  the  care  of  the  poor,  of  the  main- 
tenance of  discipline,  of  the  leadership  in  the 
assemblies  for  worship,  and,  above  all,  in  the  cele- 
bration of  the  Eucharist.  It  is  not  as  if,  while  the 
service  of  the   word  was   rendered  at  the  call  of 

^  Sohm,  pp.  3,  6,  and  often. 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   23 1 

God  and  by  the  endowment  of  the  Spirit,  these 
other  services  were  rendered  only  upon  the  appoint- 
ment of  man  and  with  the  kind  of  right  which  one 
acquires  in  secular  affairs.  On  the  contrary,  it 
was  by  the  call  of  God  and  the  gift  of  grace,  it 
was  "  in  the  Spirit,"  that  one  performed  these 
duties  too.  It  was  the  fitness  of  the  service 
thus  rendered  which  was  the  direct  proof  of  the 
divine  call.  It  was  the  influence  of  the  service 
thus  rendered  in  the  edifying  of  the  body  of 
Christ  which  was  the  evidence  that  the  man 
who  volunteered  to  render  it  was  no  mere  pre- 
tender to  the  inspiration  of  the  Holy  Ghost. 
It  was  the  answer  in  the  hearts  of  men  and 
women  to  the  pure  spirit  of  goodness  in  which 
these  tasks  were  fulfilled  which  constituted  the 
basis  of  obedience  of  the  members  of  the  com- 
munity to  those  to  whom  the  honor  of  fulfilling 
these  tasks  fell.  Where  this  goodness  and  spirit 
of  love  were  present,  obedience  was  due  as  to  the 
God  from  whom  the  goodness  and  love  came.  But 
where  this  goodness  and  spirit  of  love  failed  there 
was  no  obligation  of  obedience,  but  rather  the  duty 
of  repudiating  the  leadership  of  those  in  whom  the 
cardinal  witness  to  the  call  of  God  was  lacking.  It 
was  therefore  not  only  not  a  contradiction  in  terms 
but  it  was  a  perfectly  clear  idea,  when  the  early 
Christians  said  that  to  those  who  ruled  in  right- 
eousness among  them  they  owed  allegiance  as  to 
Christ  and  God  Himself,  and  3^et  were  entirely 
conscious   that   they  were  themselves  the   judges 


232   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

whether  these  leaders  among  them  did  rule  in 
righteousness,  and  were  aware  that  if  these  did  not 
rule  in  righteousness,  they  owed  them  no  allegiance 
whatever.  It  was  a  perfectly  clear  idea,  and  one 
so  simple  and  so  beautiful  that  we  can  say  only 
that  it  is  a  pity  that  this  idea  was  so  soon  obscured. 
But  this  also  is  quite  obvious,  that  a  government 
which  can  be  described  in  these  terms  is  no  gov- 
ernment in  the  human  sense.  Its  rights,  laws,  and 
order  are  not  rights  and  laws  in  the  conventional 
acceptation  of  those  words. ^ 

The  church  might  appear  to  one  outside  of 
it  as  if  made  up  of  Httle  isolated  communities, 
which  had  no  common  bond  save  the  bare  fact  of 
being  committed  to  one  cause.  But  that  was  not 
the  semblance  which  the  matter  bore  to  the  Chris- 
tian mind.  Underneath  the  separateness  of  the 
individual  communities  and  the  apparent  existence 
of  church  organization  only  for  the  local  body, 
underneath  this  was  the  great  ideal,  the  universal 
conception  of  the  church  as  the  people  of  God 
under  the  new  covenant.  Where  Christians 
assembled,  no  matter  how  few  of  them,  there  was 
Christ  in  their  midst.  And,  conversely,  where  the 
Lord  was,  there  was  his  church.  In  each  one  of 
these  little  local  bodies  the  spirit  of  all  Christendom 
was  manifest,  and  all  the  functions  of  Christ's  insti- 
tution were  performed.  Any  group  of  Christians, 
by  the  mere  fact  of  assembling  together,  enters 
into  all  the  rights  and  privileges  and  claims  all  the 

1  Sohm,  p.  1 6. 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   233 

promises.  It  hears  the  word  of  the  Lord,  it 
receives  the  revelation  of  prophets,  it  baptizes,  it 
observes  the  Lord's  Supper,  it  ministers  to  the 
poor  in  the  Lord's  name,  it  rebukes  sin  and  de- 
clares God's  forgiveness  of  sins.  It  does  these 
things  in  its  capacity  as  representative,  for  that 
time  and  place,  of  the  whole  Christian  movement, 
and  as  having  Christ  himself,  the  head  of  the 
church,  in  its  midst.  The  word  of  God  is  not 
acknowledged  to  be  such  because  it  has  been 
uttered  by  one  who  holds  an  office  which  in  some 
way  commissions  him  to  utter  it.  The  word  of 
God  is  recognized  as  such  by  its  own  inward  power, 
by  its  effect  on  the  hearts  of  men,  no  matter  who 
utters  it.  Even  a  man  whose  apostolic  conscious- 
ness is  as  strong  as  was  that  of  Paul  commends 
himself,  in  the  last  analysis,  to  every  man's  con- 
science in  the  sight  of  God.  The  part  played  by 
the  wandering  prophets  in  these  early  generations 
would  be  quite  unthinkable,  did  we  not  assume  that 
when  these  persons  really  spoke  for  truth,  love,  and 
goodness,  they  found  acceptance,  and  when  they 
did  not  thus  speak,  they  went  to  another  place. 

And  this,  which  is  true  of  the  preaching, 
prophecy,  teaching,  is  no  less  true  of  the  solemn 
acts  of  the  church  in  its  united  capacity,  that  is,  of 
its  charities  and  philanthropy,  of  its  maintenance 
of  discipline,  of  its  acts  of  worship,  and,  above  all, 
of  its  celebration  of  the  Eucharist.  These,  too,  in 
the  last  analysis,  are  deemed  to  be  done  only  under 
the  Spirit  and  guidance  of  God,  and  must  commend 


234   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

themselves  to  the  consciences  of  men.  In  these 
things,  too,  the  church  was  but  the  organ  of  the 
authority  of  God.  It  is  a  fundamental  fallacy  to 
suppose  that  the  rule  of  the  church  could  ever  be 
separated  from  the  teaching  office,  as  if  this  last 
responsibility  were  borne  by  the  grace  of  God, 
and  that  other  merely  by  commission  of  men. 
The  rule  of  the  church  could  never  be  separated 
from  the  teaching  office  because  it  was  the  word 
of  God  and  the  impulse  of  His  Spirit  which  was 
the  decisive  instance  in  the  whole  order  and  work 
and  discipline  of  the  church. ^  Converts  were  to 
be  baptized  and  admitted  to  the  Lord's  Supper 
only  upon  the  ground  of  the  call  of  God  to  those 
converts.  Absolution  from  sin  could  take  place 
only  in  the  name  of  God,  and  so  must  be  a  part  of 
the  function  of  him  who  handles  the  word  of  God 
and  knows  the  will  of  God.  The  celebration  of 
the  Eucharist  could  never  be  a  mere  executive 
function.  It  could  never  take  place  without  the 
holy  word,  the  oracles  of  the  prophets,  and 
especially  the  reminiscence  of  the  Master  who 
suffered  for  our  sakes.  Even  the  administration 
of  charity  was  only  the  doing  in  love,  for  others, 
out  of  the  treasure  which,  through  the  gift  of  be- 
lievers, had  become  Christ's  treasure;  as  also  those 
to  whom  the  gifts  were  given  were  Christ's  poor. 
A  man's  fitness  in  character  and  spirit  for  the 
rendering  of  one  or  all  of  these  services  was  the 
evidence  of  his  call  of  God,  at  least  for  the  time 

1  Sohm,  pp.  29  f. 


CANONIZATION   AND    CHURCH    GOVERNxMENT       235 

being,  to  render  these  services.  Any  man  might 
offer  himself  for  the  service,  and  the  church  itself 
was  the  judge  both  of  the  worthiness  of  him  who 
thus  offered,  and  again  of  the  blessing  to  all  with 
which  the  service  was  attended. 

The  beginnings  of  actual  organization  in  fixed 
forms  and  with  rights  and  powers,  would  surely 
have  come  with  the  growing  needs  and  self-con- 
sciousness of  even  single  communities  worshipping 
in  a  given  place.  Those  needs  were  of  various 
sorts.  But  the  assembly  of  all  Christians  of  a 
given  place  for  the  celebration  of  the  Lord's  Sup- 
per was  the  central  point  in  the  life  of  the  Christian 
community.  The  Eucharist  could  indeed  be  ob- 
served at  any  time,  and  in  any  place  where  two  or 
three  were  met  together.  But  it  was  the  rule  to 
observe  it  on  the  Lord's  day,  and  in  an  assembly 
of  the  whole  body  of  Christians.  Here  first,  prob- 
ably, made  itself  felt  that  necessity  of  a  solemn  and 
representative  leadership  from  within  the  commu- 
nity itself,  which  was  the  beginning  of  church 
government.  Apostles,  prophets,  constituted  in  a 
way  the  only  functionaries  of  the  universal  church. 
But  exactly  for  that  reason  it  was  not  from  these 
that  the  organization  of  the  local  community  could 
take  its  rise.  An  Apostle,  a  prophet,  as  in  the 
earliest  days,  would  lead  these  services  of  the  as- 
sembled Christians  on  the  Lord's  day  and  conduct 
the  observance  of  the  Lord's  Supper,  if  such  an 
one  chanced  to  be  present.  But  some  one  of 
blameless   Hfe,   of   power   in   God's   word,  whose 


236   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

fitness  was  also  conceded  by  the  multitude,  would 
perform  this  duty  if  no  apostolic  man  were  present. 
By  the  leader  in  this  solemn  act  of  worship  was 
offered  the  prayer  of  thanksgiving  which  gave 
name  to  the  Eucharist.  In  connection  with  the 
observance  of  the  Lord's  Supper  were  offered 
the  gifts  which  constituted  the  church  funds  for 
charitable  purposes,  for  the  relief  of  the  poor,  for 
the  support  of  widows  and  of  the  sick  and  aged, 
and  of  that  class,  at  times  not  inconsiderable,  of 
those  who,  after  conversion,  could  not  return  to 
their  old  employments  and  for  whom  temporary 
provision  must  be  made.  These  funds  the  leader 
of  the  solemn  act  of  worship  had  the  responsi- 
bility of  administering.  If  the  church  had  been 
thought  of  as  a  corporation,  an  association,  or 
society,  those  funds  would  have  been  spoken  of  as 
the  church  funds.  They  are  never  in  the  earliest 
period  thus  spoken  of.  They  are  always  alluded 
to  as  Christ's  funds,  as  the  Lord's  treasures,  as 
belonging  to  God  alone.  And  he  administers 
them  for  God  who,  in  prayer,  in  the  leadership  of 
worship,  in  instruction,  interprets  to  men  the  word 
and  will  of  God.  Apostles  might  be  prophets. 
Both  were  in  a  sense  teachers.  But  the  teacher,  in 
the  specific  sense,  is  the  settled  resident,  in  contrast 
to  those  others,  who  were  more  often  only  visitorSo 
It  was  the  permanent  resident  in  the  community, 
the  man  who,  in  the  absence  of  Apostles  and  in  the 
decline  of  the  prophecy,  comforted  and  admonished 
his  equals  and  trained  up  the  younger  persons  —  he 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   23/ 

it  was  to  whom  naturally  fell  the  leadership  in  the 
service  of  the  Eucharist.  The  teacher  might  lack 
the  peculiar  prophetic  vision ;  he  had  not  the  ex- 
perience at  first  hand  which  was  the  original  endow- 
ment of  the  Apostles,  but  it  was  he  by  whom,  in 
the  same  gift  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  regular  edifi- 
cation of  the  community  was  carried  forward.  It 
was  the  man  with  the  power  of  the  Holy  Ghost  in 
the  service  of  the  Gospel,  who  naturally  led  also  in 
the  Eucharist  and  administered  the  sacred  fund 
for  charity. 

Even  the  right  of  the  Apostles  and  of  others 
to  be  supported  out  of  the  fund  created  by  these 
gifts  given  at  the  observance  of  the  Lord's  Supper 
was  derived  from  the  Apostles'  service  to  Christ. 
It  was  not  viewed  as  compensation  for  their  labors 
in  the  particular  community,  for  which  they  might 
receive  pay  out  of  community  funds.  The  teaching 
office,  in  so  far  as  it  became  an  occupation  absorbing 
all  the  time  of  men,  was  sustained  always  from  this 
point  of  view.  He  who  teaches,  celebrates  the 
Eucharist,  administers  the  charity  of  the  church  in 
Christ's  name,  may  receive  for  his  own  support,  if 
he  have  need,  out  of  the  treasure  which  belongs  to 
the  Lord  and  in  order  that  he  may  be  free  from 
other  cares.  But  no  other  right  of  compensation, 
and  no  compensation  of  administrative  officers  as 
such,  is  ever  mentioned.  In  truth,  there  were  no 
administrative  officers  as  such.  Even  for  the  dea- 
cons the  point  of  view  is  always  that  of  the  call 
of  God,  and  not  that  of  the  appointment  of  men. 


238   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

save  as  men,  in  appointing,  recognized  the  call  of 
God. 

To  those  only  whose  word  and  life  awaked  re- 
sponse in  Christian  hearts,  to  those  only  whose 
gifts  were  verified  in  the  edification  of  their  hearers, 
was  the  service  in  the  word  of  God,  the  leadership 
of  worship,  the  power  of  discipline,  and  the  respon- 
sibility of  financial  administration  permanently  in- 
trusted. We  cannot  yet  speak  of  officers.  There 
were  no  officers,  in  the  sense  in  which  we  should 
understand  that  word  in  any  other  organization. 
But  if  the  church  named  such  and  such  an  one  to 
be  a  permanent  functionary,  its  stated  leader  and 
teacher  and  administrator,  it  was  because  it  be- 
lieved that  God  had  thus  named  him.  In  a  very 
real  sense  the  church  chose  its  officers ;  yet  it  did 
not  view  itself  as  choosing  them,  but  merely  as 
recognizing  God's  choice. 

All  this  language  which  we  have  been  using 
has  to  be  divested  of  some  age-long  associations 
before  we  can  realize  how  simple  and  beautiful  it 
is.  In  the  associations  in  which  we  sometimes 
meet  it,  such  speech  mystifies  us  and  repels.  It 
has  been  used  sometimes  as  the  language  of  ob- 
scurantism and  has  become  the  phrase  of  supersti- 
tion. Men  have  sometimes  spoken  as  if  the  call  of 
God  were  evidenced  by  marks  which  no  man  could 
recognize,  or  at  least  not  recognize  by  rational 
process  and  by  moral  sense.  That  has  been  some- 
times put  forth  as  the  choice  of  God  which  we 
very  well  know  to  have  been  the  choice  of  men, 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   239 

and  a  very  bad  choice  and  from  very  questionable 
motives.  The  result  is  bewildering.  It  is  worth 
while  to  get  back  to  the  simple  and  transparent 
meaning  of  these  much  used  phrases,  and  to  realize 
what  was  intended  by  them  when  they  began  their 
life  and  service  in  the  first  pure  enthusiasm  of  the 
Christian  church. 

But  we  must  ask  ourselves,  Who  were  the  pres- 
byters in  the  organization  of  the  Christian  church 
in  the  earUest  time }  The  statement  made  by 
Jerome,  which  has  been  much  approved  since  the 
time  of  the  Reformation,  and  which  has  given  no 
small  comfort  to  the  non-episcopal  orders,  that 
bishop  and  presbyter  are  but  different  names  for 
the  same  officer  is  hardly  correct.^  It  would  be 
more  true  to  say  that  the  presbyter  of  the  earliest 
times  was  not  an  officer  of  the  church  at  all.  He 
belonged  to  a  class  which  was  indeed  held  in 
honor,  and  to  which  certain  natural  functions  fell. 
But  the  presbyterate  was  not  an  office.  The  elders 
were  simply  those  members  of  the  Christian  com- 
munity who  had  been  some  time  within  its  circle, 
and  had  given  evidence  of  their  Christian  charac- 
ter through  their  deeds  of  charity  and  their  blame- 
less walk.  In  the  nature  of  things  the  official 
heads  of  the  church  would  probably  be  taken  from 
among  the  elders.      And  yet  not  even   that  was 

1  See  Jerome,  Ep.  69.  3,  and  Ep.  146.  i;  cf.  Lightfoot,  Com- 
mentary  on  Philippians,  p.  97  f.,  and  Essay  on  the  Christian 
Ministry,  p.  196;  A.  V.  G.  Allen,  Christian  Institutions,  p.  79  ; 
and  Schmiedel,  art.  "  Ministry,"  in  Encyclopedia  Biblica,  iii.  3101. 


240   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

necessarily  the  case.  The  presbyter  was  not  one 
of  the  heads  of  the  church  in  any  official  sense. 
There  was  no  appointment  to  the  dignity  of  a 
presbyter.  No  choice  placed  a  man  in  the  class  of 
the  elders.^  But  if  the  presbyter  had  no  office,  he 
had  an  honored  place.  When  the  community  had 
grown  too  large  for  all  to  sit  with  the  bishop  at 
the  table  in  the  Eucharist,  the  presbyters  still  sat 
with  him  there.  But  they  did  this  exactly  in  their 
character  as  representatives  of  the  people. 

There  was  an  ordination  to  the  bishopric.  The 
choice  was  ordinarily  out  of  the  ranks  of  the  elders. 
And  after  a  presbyter  was  thus  chosen  bishop,  he 
was  the  presbyter  by  eminence,  placed  thus,  at  least 
for  the  time  being,  over  the  church.  The  ruling 
elder  was  that  one  of  the  presbyters  who  had  been 
chosen  bishop.  The  presbyter,  as  presbyter,  did 
not  rule.  The  bishop  was  merely  that  one  of  the 
presbyters  who  was  called  upon  by  the  community 
to  take  upon  him  the  responsibilities  which  we 
have  described.  The  bishop  was  that  one  of 
the  presbyters  to  whom,  through  the  choice  of  the 
congregation,  testimony  was  given  that  he,  in  the 
gift  of  grace,  had  received  the  call  of  God  to 
the  service  of  the  word,  to  lead  in  the  acts  of  wor- 
ship, and  to  administer  benevolence.  But  that 
a  bishop,  even  after  he  had  thus  been  chosen,  had 
no  legal  and  exclusive  right,  is  evident  from  the 
fact  that  in  the  presence  of  an  Apostle  he  gave 

1  The  first  trace  of  the  ordination  of  a  presbyter  is  in  the  Shep- 
herd of  Hernias^  Vis.  iii.  I.  8,  9. 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   24I 

place.  It  is  still  further  evident  from  the  fact 
that  there  were,  commonly  in  these  early  churches, 
even  in  the  smallest  of  them,  more  bishops  than 
one.  The  name  may  have  continued  to  be  held 
by  those  who  formerly  exercised  the  function, 
or  by  the  whole  group  of  those  who  exercised  it 
in  turn.  It  is  not  that  they  constituted  a  bishops' 
college  within  the  local  church,  as  has  been  often 
assumed.  That  would  imply  organization  by  right. 
Their  function  was  by  grace.  A  man's  fitness  need 
not  have  failed  when  he  ceased  to  do  the  duty  of  a 
bishop.  He  returned  to  the  rank  of  the  presby- 
ters. But  still  he  was  always  a  presbyter  who  had 
been  singled  out  as  a  bishop.  The  number  of 
bishops  was  not  a  fixed  one.  We  know  nothing  of 
an  appointed  term.  The  bishop  for  the  time  being 
was  merely  he  who  had  been  called  by  the  con- 
gregation to  the  doing  of  the  appointed  task. 

And  yet,  although  such  was  the  theory,  every 
circumstance,  as  the  church  moved  forward  in  the 
second  century,  made  for  the  permanence  of  one 
individual  in  the  performance  of  the  bishop's  func- 
tion. Everything  tended  to  transform  his  task  into 
an  office,  and  to  confer  upon  him  ever  enlarging 
powers  which  corresponded  to  the  responsibility  of 
that  office.  We  said  that  such  was  the  original 
theory.  But  one  is  fain  to  ask  himself  whether  it 
was  more  than  a  theory.  Was  human  nature  ever 
such  that  upon  a  basis  like  this  it  could  do  work  and 
achieve  a  purpose  in  the  world  ?  Certain  it  is  that 
the  forces  of  human  nature,  and  as  well  the  exi- 


242   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

gencies  of  the  task  which  the  Christian  movement 
set  itself,  tended  ever  and  inexorably  to  bring 
about  a  change  of  this  ideal  and  spiritual  basis. 
And  this  change  from  the  rule  of  the  Spirit  to  the 
rule  of  the  bishop  is  the  precise  parallel  to  the 
transition  which  we  have  been  studying,  from 
the  authority  of  Christ  to  that  of  the  written 
Book.  An  organization  of  the  church,  which  was 
really  an  organization,  became  with  the  enlarging 
problem  and  the  new  time  an  absolute  necessity. 
Long  before  the  end  of  the  second  century  the 
government  of  the  church  wore  an  aspect  very 
different  from  that  of  the  simple  situation  which 
we  have  described.  But  elements  of  this  ideal  are 
carried  forward  and  reappear,  sometimes  in  strange 
shapes,  in  every  organization  for  government  which 
the  church  has  known.  And  yet,  almost  in  the 
purity  of  its  ideal,  this  simple  organization,  or  rather 
absence  of  organization,  continued  in  portions  of 
the  world  down  to  the  time  of  the  Didach^,  at  all 
events,  and  traces  of  it  may  be  found  even  much 
later.  But  yet  in  the  Epistle  of  Clement  we  may 
see  the  beginning  of  the  transformation  which  is 
to  pass  over  the  whole  nature  of  the  thing. 

The  strife  in  the  Corinthian  community  was  of 
the  nature  of  a  rebellion  of  the  younger  element 
against  the  elder.  It  was  a  strife  concerning  the 
bishop's  office.  It  had  taken  the  form  of  the  shut- 
ting out  of  appointed  elders  from  the  celebration 
of  the  Eucharist.^     The  Roman  church  felt  called 

^  I  Clement,  ii.  3,  and  cf.  xxix.  i.    See  Sohm,  p.  163. 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   243 

upon  to  intervene.     It  sent  three  of  its  elders  with 
a  letter  to  allay  the  strife.     The  Romans  declare 
that  the   Corinthian   church   is  acting  contrary  to 
the  commandment  of  God.     There  must  be  a  fixed 
order  in  the  church.     The  Apostles  had  appointed 
bishops  and  deacons  because  they  knew  before- 
hand by  revelation  that  just  such  strife  as  this  in 
the  Corinthian  church  would  certainly  arise.      It 
was  a  sin  on  the  part  of  the  Corinthians  to  rebel 
against  the  representatives  of  the  Apostles,  who 
had  not  laid  themselves  open  to  any  reproach  in 
reference  to  their  moral  life.     One  sees  here  the 
beginning  of  the  claim  of  apostoUc  character  for 
the  organization.     To  these  very  Corinthians  Paul 
had  himself   said   that   God   was    not   the   author 
of  confusion.^     Only  when  we  appreciate  that  the 
genius  of  primitive  Christianity   was  enthusiasm, 
inspiration,  unbounded  liberty,  and  emphasis  upon 
the  individual,  are  we  prepared  to  appreciate  why 
Paul  spoke  so    often   and  so  strongly  as   he  did 
of  order  in  the   Christian   churches.      The  early 
Christians  would  have  said  that  the  Apostles  gave 
some  simple  kind  of  organization  to  the  Christian 
churches,  because  order  was  good.     The  Romans 
were  prepared  to  say  that  the  particular  form  of 
organization    and   order   was    good    because    the 
Apostles  gave  it.     We  see  here  the  precise  parallel 
to  the  beginning  of  the  claim  of  the  authority  of 
documents  because  they  were   apostolic,   and  no 
longer  simply  because  they  enshrined  the  Christ. 

1  I  Corinthians  xiv.  33. 


244   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

We  have  here  the  beginning  of  the  claim  that  a 
bishop,  .once  chosen,  holds  his  place  and  per- 
forms his  function  by  right.  Ordination  is  put 
in  the  way  of  gaining  a  legal  quaUty,  instead 
of  having,  as  before,  a  character  merely  of  gift 
and  grace.  The  ideal  had  been  the  rule  of  the 
word  and  Spirit  of  God  in  the  church.  But  a 
fixed  government  of  men  was  becoming  a  neces- 
sity. And  the  only  way  in  which  the  rule  of  the 
word  of  God  in  the  church  could  give  place  to  a 
fixed  government  of  men,  was  that  that  govern- 
ment of  men  should  be  proclaimed  as  provided  for 
in  the  word  of  God.  It  is  precisely  this  which 
here  in  the  Roman  Epistle  takes  place.  Govern- 
ment in  the  church  of  the  Apostles  is  proclaimed 
as  provided  for  in  the  apostolic  writings.  What 
effect  this  letter  may  have  had  upon  the  Corinthian 
church  we  do  not  know.  But  the  contention  which 
is  here  put  forth  had  revolutionary  effect  upon  the 
Roman  church  itself.  It  never  forgot  that  for 
which  it  had  contended.  This  idea  governs,  hence- 
forth, the  Roman  church,  that  there  is  a  divine 
order  of  church  government,  sacred  and  inviolable, 
established  at  the  beginning  by  the  Apostles  them- 
selves. We  have  here  the  precise  parallel  to  the 
fact  that  the  church  came  to  deem  that  it  had  in  the 
apostolic  documents  a  sacred  literature,  a  Canon, 
authoritative  in  this  new  sense  from  the  first. 

The  original  Christianity  was  an  enthusiasm,  an 
inspiration,  an  ideaUsm,  for  which  no  organization 
was  needed.    But  after  the  beginning  of  the  second 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   245 

century  the  courage  of  that  faith  which  trusts 
everything  to  the  word  of  God  and  to  the  spirit 
in  man,  steadily  sinks.  It  is  this  impaired  faith, 
this  diminished  sense  of  inspiration,  this  decHning 
ideaUsm,  which  demands  a  church  government 
with  formal  limitations,  with  guaranties  and  rights 
and  powers,  for  the  maintenance  of  order  in 
Christendom.  Just  so  we  have  seen  that  the  im- 
paired faith  of  men  in  their  own  inspiration  en- 
hanced their  sense  of  the  unique  inspiration  of 
writings  attributed  to  the  Apostles.  There  was 
entire  justification,  there  was  an  historic  right, 
there  was  a  practical  necessity,  for  some  such 
movement.  It  was  inevitable  that  the  kind  of 
organization  which  we  have  seen  in  the  Christian 
church  should  be  transformed  into  a  real  govern- 
ment, and  that  the  duty  should  be  laid  upon  the 
bishops  really  to  govern.  One  knows  how  near 
lay  the  abuse  of  Christian  love  and  trustful- 
ness. We  are  not  left  to  surmise  the  absurdities 
and  wickednesses  which  were  perpetrated  in  the 
name  of  the  Christian  inspiration  and  enthusiasm, 
even  by  Christians  themselves.  Some  even  of 
Paul's  Epistles  betray  that  there  were  things  of 
this  sort  in  the  Christian  communities,  here  and 
there,  which  occasioned  him  anxiety.  We  remem- 
ber that  the  Didach^  rules  that  apostles  shall  not 
stay  more  than  two  days  in  a  place. -^  We  recall 
Lucian's  satire  on  the  cynic  philosopher,  Peregrinus 
Proteus,  and   his  ridiculous  imposition   upon  the 

1  Didache,  xii.  5. 


246   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

Christian  community.  There  were  strong  reasons 
for  wishing  to  get  the  teaching  and  worship  and 
administration  of  charitable  funds  into  the  hands  of 
known  and  trusted  men.  The  exigencies  of  the 
period  of  persecution,  the  pressure  of  the  doctrinal 
issue,  made  it  impossible  that  the  church  should 
continue  to  exist  without  a  real  leadership  such  as 
had  not  yet  been  demanded.  That  leadership 
appeared  in  the  emergency.  But  just  so  the 
Canon  and  the  creed  were  called  forth  by  the  same 
emergency.  And  in  principle  all  three  of  these 
things  are  apprehended  by  the  Christians  as  having 
been  present  from  the  beginning  in  provisions 
which  the  Apostles  had  made. 

But  if,  through  the  choice  to  the  bishopric,  an 
exclusive  right  was  to  be  given  to  the  bishop  in  the 
celebration  of  the  Eucharist  and  in  the  administra- 
tion of  charity,  if  the  initiative  was  to  be  taken 
away  from  the  community  and  the  episcopal 
authority  was  to  become  a  fixed  order,  there  must 
be  henceforth  only  one  bishop.  And  just  this, 
that  there  shall  be  but  a  single  bishop  in  a  given 
community,  and  that  the  observance  of  the  Lord's 
Supper  shall  not  be  valid  which  the  bishop  does 
not  lead  —  these  are  the  great  contentions  of  Igna- 
tius. He  is  never  weary  of  asserting  that  where 
the  bishop  is,  there  alone  is  Christ.  Significant 
is  the  contrast  with  the  text :  "  Where  two  or  three 
are  gathered  together  in  my  name,  there  am  I  in 
the  midst  of  them."  For  that  part  of  the  world 
for  which  Ignatius  wrote  one  further  point  is  to  be 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   24/ 

noted.  Although  the  single  bishop  is  there,  still 
the  definite  circle  of  those  who  are  to  attend  his 
communion  and  to  be  under  his  administration 
has  not  yet  been  created.  The  obligation  of  the 
individual  to  attend  communion  in  a  certain  place, 
and  under  a  certain  bishop,  rather  than  in  an- 
other place  and  in  an  assembly  not  presided 
over  by  this  bishop,  has  not  come  to  full  recogni- 
tion.i  But  for  Justin  the  bishop  of  Rome  has  a 
definite  church  community,  which  from  city  and 
country  assembles  to  the  Eucharist  that  he  cele- 
brates, and  outside  of  the  bishop's  assembly,  or 
except  by  some  one  whom  the  bishop  deputes, 
the  Eucharist  cannot  be  celebrated.^  In  Rome, 
therefore,  between  Clement  and  Justin,  this  change 
has  taken  place.  On  the  other  hand,  in  Syria,  or 
perhaps  Egypt,  in  the  time  of  the  Didache,  about 
150  A.D.,  there  were  in  the  single  communities 
more  bishops  than  one;  there  was  no  definitive 
right  of  any  bishop ;  and,  in  the  Roman  sense  of 
that  contention,  the  institution  of  the  bishopric  was 
not  carried  back  to  the  Apostles.  The  Eucharist 
was  still  celebrated  by  the  wandering  apostle  when 
he  arrived,  and  presumably  by  any  Christian  of 
good  character. 

But  it  is  altogether  obvious  that  the  exigencies 
of  the  organization,  so  soon  as  it  grew  large  and 
complicated,  would  involve  the  placing  of  some  one 
in  charge  of  the  general  interests,  and  the  clothing 
him  with  an  authority  which  was  bound  to  become 

1  Ignatius,  Ad  Magnes.,  4.  ^  gee  Sohm,  p.  187. 


248   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

more  and  more  absolute.  The  disappearance  of 
the  class  of  men  known  as  apostles  gave  to  the 
presbyters  and  bishops  great  power  in  the  name  of 
Christ.  The  maintenance  of  discipline  among  the 
Christians,  as  against  the  low  moral  standard  of 
the  heathen  world,  gave  them  yet  more.  The  vast 
growth  of  Christian  charity  in  the  period  of  perse- 
cution tended  in  the  same  direction.  In  the  days 
of  stress  the  churches  of  a  city  or  of  a  province 
must  be  able  to  act  in  concert  and  to  present  a 
common  front.  Inevitably  the  presiding  officer  of 
the  strongest  church,  or  the  strongest  man  then 
presiding  over  any  church,  would  be  expected  to 
act  in  the  name  of  all.  The  doctrinal  emergency 
was  working,  as  we  shall  see,  for  the  elevation  of 
the  heads  of  the  so-called  apostoHc  churches  to  a 
position  of  unquestioned  influence.  Some  one 
must  be  able  to  define  what  Christianity  was  and 
to  defend  it  before  the  world.  The  same  causes 
which  we  have  seen  leading  the  church  toward  an 
universally  accepted  Canon  of  the  New  Testament, 
we  now  see  driving  it  toward  a  generally  acknowl- 
edged and  strongly  centralized  form  of  govern- 
ment. In  the  two  movements  the  same  conception, 
namely,  that  of  apostohcity,  plays  the  main  part. 
The  matured  state  of  things  at  the  end  of  the  sec- 
ond century  is  carried  back  to  the  middle  of  the 
first  century ;  and  being  attributed,  in  form  and 
directly,  to  the  Apostles,  it  gains  the  weight  of 
their  great  name.  There  was  no  church  in  all 
the  world  for  one  moment  to  dispute  the  natural 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   249 

leadership  of  the  church  of  Rome.  And  if  we  add 
to  this  that,  just  at  the  crucial  epoch,  for  several 
generations  the  church  of  Rome  was  ruled  by  a 
series  of  very  able  men,  with  all  the  Roman  instinct 
for  dominion,  we  see  something  of  the  forces  which 
were  working  toward  the  one  great  result. 

Any  one  can  see  that  the  first  consequence  of 
the  claiming  for  the  church  an  organization  in 
right  was  necessarily  the  externalization  of  the 
church.  It  was  the  making  of  the  church  a  power 
and  kingdom  in  the  world,  in  the  sense  in  which 
the  Roman  church  has  always  claimed  to  be  a 
power  and  kingdom  in  the  world.  This  conse- 
quence Ignatius  did  not  perceive.  But  this  infer- 
ence Irenaeus  and  Cyprian  drew.  To  Irenaeus, 
about  the  year  i8o,  the  fact  of  belonging  to  the 
church  which  is  headed  by  the  rightful  bishop  and 
the  possession  of  the  faith  inherited  in  all  the 
apostolic  communities — these  are  the  things  which 
constitute  a  Christian.^  These  are  the  means 
by  which  his  life  is  brought  into  touch  with 
the  life  and  spirit  of  Jesus.  For  Cyprian,  face  to 
face  with  the  Novatian  schism,  not  even  the  ad- 
herence to  the  orthodox  faith  was  conclusive.  The 
Novatians  were  not  heretical.  They  were  only 
schismatic.  For  Cyprian,  therefore,  it  is  the  hold- 
ing to  the  rightful  bishop  which  characterizes  the 
true  Christian.2  Not  where  the  Christian  experi- 
ence is,  the  gift  of  a  holy  spirit  in   men's  lives, 

1  Irenaeus,  Adv.  I/ccres.,  iv.  53.  2. 

2  Cyprian,  Ejf)ist.  69.    3  and  8,  and  repeatedly. 


250   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

which  had  been  the  bond    and   condition  every- 
where at  first ;  not  where  the  Scriptures  are ;  not 
where  the  apostolic  faith  and  the  rightful  bishop 
are,  as  with  Irenaeus  ;  but  where  the  rightful  bishop 
is,  there,  and  there  alone,  is  Christ.     Cyprian  would 
not  have  denied  that  men  may  have  had  the  Chris- 
tian experience  in  other  ways  than  this  which  he 
describes.    But  the  true  way  is  under  the  allegiance 
to  the  rightful  bishop.     It  is  through  obedience  to 
the  bishop  that  one  shows  his  spirit  of  obedience  to 
Christ.     But  for  such  a  zealot's  soul  as  was  that  of 
Cyprian,  so  unmeasured  a  claim  on  behalf  of  the 
bishopric,  and  of  himself  as  bishop,  could  never  be 
made  to  rest  upon  the  choice  and  ordination  of 
men,  as  if  such  high  privilege  and  inexorable  duty 
could  be  conferred  upon  a  man  by  men.     Always 
the  consciousness  of  the  original  state  of  things  is 
carried  forward,  and  this  enormous  power  of  the 
bishop    is   made   to   rest,    not    upon    any   human 
appointment,  but  upon  inspiration  and  divine  call. 
The  elections  of  bishops,  which,  in  those  sadly 
troubled    times    presented   often    a   most    painful 
spectacle,  are  spoken  of  always  as  transactions  in 
which  men  have  no  part,  save  only  to  concur  in 
that  which  God  has  done. 

An  equally  certain  consequence  of  this  new  order 
of  things  since  Ignatius,  and  a  consequence  which 
was  ever  more  and  more  accentuated  by  Irenaeus 
and  by  Cyprian,  was  the  attribution  to  the  bishop 
and  to  his  assistants  in  the  celebration  of  the 
Eucharist  of  a  priestly  character  which  gradually 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   25 1 

and  completely  took  the  place  of  the  original 
Christian  priesthood  of  all  believers.  The  original 
priestly  function  in  the  new  covenant  had  been 
prayer,  and  especially  the  common  prayer  at  the 
Eucharist.  So  long  as  the  Eucharist  had  been 
celebrated  anywhere  and  at  any  time  when  Chris- 
tians came  together,  and  by  any  one  whom  they 
recognized  as  having  received  of  God  that  grace 
of  character  which  fitted  him  to  celebrate,  the 
Eucharist  was  a  representative  act.  It  was  a 
function  of  the  community.  He  who  administered 
it  was  but  the  agent  of  the  worshippers.  But 
from  the  moment  when  it  began  to  be  held  that 
the  Eucharist  could  be  celebrated,  not  by  any 
Christian,  not  even  by  a  presbyter  acting  for  the 
time  as  bishop,  but  only  by  the  one  presbyter  who 
had  been  formally  chosen,  and  only  when  the 
bishop  chose,  and  only  where  he  was,  the  centre 
of  gravity  of  the  whole  transaction  was  changed.^ 
The  power  resided  henceforth,  not  with  the  com- 
munity, but  with  the  bishop.  The  Eucharist  be- 
came a  sacerdotal  function,  and  the  long  road 
toward  the  doctrine  of  the  Mass  was  entered  upon. 
Even  Tertullian  calls  the  bishop  "  sacerdos."  The 
separation  in  principle  of  the  clerical  body  from 
the  mass  of  believers  was  begun.  And  in  Cyprian, 
before  the  year  250,  it  was  complete. 

Moreover,  with  this  right  of  the  bishop  to  order 
or  to  refuse  permission  for  the  Eucharist  and  for 
the  collection  of  alms  which  went  with  the  Euchar-. 

1  Tertullian,  De  Bapt,  c.  17. 


252   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

ist,  and  with  his  right  to  control  the  alms  thus  col- 
lected, went  also  the  duty  of  deciding  who  should 
speak  or  teach  or  prophesy  in  the  Christian  com- 
munities. If  the  bishop  alone  could  grant  that  privi- 
lege to  others,  of  course  he  had  it  for  himself.  The 
bishop  and  those  whom  he  appoints  gradually  take 
the  place  which  in  the  older  days  Apostles,  proph- 
ets, teachers  had  held.  The  free  participation  of  all 
Christians  in  the  service  of  the  word  of  God  is  at  an 
end.  With  the  growth  of  the  church  from  without, 
by  conversion  of  adults  from  all  classes  of  the 
heathen;  with  its  growth  also  from  within,  through 
the  children  born  in  Christian  famihes;  with  the 
necessity  of  declaring  what  was  authoritative  Chris- 
tian doctrine  in  face  of  the  heretics  and  even  of 
answering  for  it  to  the  powers,  came  more  and  more 
the  assumption  on  the  part  of  the  bishop  of  control 
over  the  teaching  office  as  well.  This  control  of 
the  bishop  over  the  teaching  office  was  in  complete 
contradiction  to  the  original  state  of  things,  in 
which  every  man  testified  as  the  grace  of  God  was 
given  unto  him.  But  the  original  feeling  is  still 
shown  in  this,  that  this  power  of  the  bishop  is 
never  viewed  as  conferred  by  the  congregation  in 
its  interests.  It  is  deputed  to  the  bishop  by  Christ 
and  the  Apostles  themselves. 

The  last  vestige  of  the  old  state  of  things  dis- 
appears when  Calixtus,  who  was  Bishop  of  Rome 
from  217  to  222  A.D.,  declares  that  not  even  for 
deadly  sin  may  a  community  seek  to  remove  its 
bishop.     The  original  state  of  things  had  been,  as 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   253 

we  have  seen,  that  a  bishop  became  such  by  vir- 
tue of  the  community's  recognition  of  the  gifts  of 
God  to  him  which  fitted  him  for  his  work,  and  the 
foremost  of  all  these  was  a  blameless  life.  In 
that  earlier  time  if  a  bishop  had  been  guilty  of  a 
serious  sin  the  congregation  would  not  be  deemed 
to  have  taken  away  from  him  the  right  to  offici- 
ate. That  right  would  be  held  to  have  lapsed  of 
itself.  His  character  constituted  the  only  evidence 
that  he  had  any  such  right.  It  would  have  been 
deemed  that  the  grace  of  God  upon  which  all 
his  service  rested  was  not  in  him,  or  had  departed 
from  him.  Even  in  Clement  of  Rome,  the  reproach 
against  the  younger  element  in  the  community  is 
explicitly  that  they  had  rebelled  against  appointed 
bishops  concerning  whom  no  sin  had  been  alleged. 
The  implication  is  that  if  these  had  been  accused 
of  sin  it  would  have  been  a  different  matter.  In 
the  century  and  a  quarter  since  Clement  a  great 
change  has  taken  place.  So  necessary  is  the 
bishop,  even  to  the  existence  of  the  church;  so 
great  is  the  emphasis  upon  his  outward  succession 
in  the  line  of  the  Apostles;  so  impenetrable  is  the 
mystery  of  the  divine  call;  so  much  is  his  heavenly 
enduement  made  to  consist  in  things  other  than 
those  simple  moral  and  spiritual  qualities  of  which 
every  man  is  a  judge,  that  in  220  a  bishop  of  Rome 
has  the  hardihood  to  assert  that  a  bishop's  sins  are 
not  reviewable  by  men,  and  that  they  do  not  vitiate 
his  service  in  the  things  of  God.  It  is  to  the  honor 
of   Cyprian   that   he   bitterly  resented    this.     But 


254   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

Stephen,  Bishop  of  Rome  from  254  to  257  a.d., 
maintained  the  theory  in  its  full  practical  conse- 
quence. The  community  has  no  right  whatever  to 
seek  the  removal  even  of  the  unworthiest  bishop. 

Just  as  in  the  conflict  with  Gnosticism  and  Mar- 
cionitism  the  free  teaching  which  had  been  char- 
acteristic of  earliest  Christianity  was  put  down  by 
the  episcopate,  just  so  in  the  reaction  from  Mon- 
tanism,  the  last  vestige  of  the  original  Christian 
inspiration  and  of  the  right  to  forgive  sins 
through  that  inspiration,  is  done  away  by  the  epis- 
copate. Zephyrinus  and  Calixtus  both  held  the 
claims  of  the  Montanists  in  this  particular  as  an 
invasion  of  the  rights  of  the  successors  of  Peter.^ 
The  presbyterate  remained  in  some  sense,  as  we 
have  seen,  representative  of  the  rights  of  the  con- 
gregation. But  more  and  more  the  presbyters, 
too,  become  the  aids  and  functionaries  of  the 
bishop.  As  they  sat  with  the  bishop  and  not 
with  the  communicants  in  the  celebration  of 
the  Eucharist,  they  came  more  and  more  to  be 
identified  with  the  clergy  and  separated  from  the 
laity.  The  very  word  presbyter  becomes  priest, 
and  loses  all  sense  of  its  original  meaning  as 
elder.  Even  the  deacons  are  deemed  to  be  in 
preparation  for  the  priesthood.  The  order  of  the 
clergy  arrogates  to  itself  all  religious  functions 
in  the  name  of  God.  The  people  became  passive 
recipients.  The  whole  institution  of  the  Middle 
Ages  is  fully  forecast  before  the  third  century  is 

1  Tertullian,  De  Pudicit.^  I. 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT   255 

gone.  The  association  of  bishops,  metropolitans, 
and  patriarchs  in  the  synods  remains  the  character- 
istic thing  in  the  East,  as  it  is  even  down  to  our 
own  day.  In  the  West  the  power  of  the  Pope 
overshadows  everything.  But  the  theory  of  the 
clerical  organization  is  the  same  in  either  case. 

The  monarchical  episcopate,   culminating   logi- 
cally in  the  papacy  at  Rome,  came  naturally  in 
the   development   of    the    church.      It   was    well 
to  say   that   where  two  or  three   were   gathered 
together   in    Christ's  name    there   was    Christ   in 
their  midst.      It  was   true  that,   in  that   original 
sense,   the    church    could    have    no   organization. 
But  for  the  actual  state  of  things,  both  without 
the   church    and  within    the   church  as  well,   for 
the  work  which  Christianity  was  destined  to  ac- 
comphsh  in  the  world,  it  must  have  an  organiza- 
tion.    That  organization  did  beyond  question  grow 
up  in  experience,  and,  somewhat,  at  least,  after 
the  manner  which  we  have  endeavored  to  outline. 
It  did  absorb  large  elements  from  Judaism  and 
from  Hellenism,  as  also,  later,  it  has  absorbed  large 
elements  from    Roman  imperialism,   from  feudal- 
ism, and  from  democracy.     That  organization  was 
guided  by  experience.      But  the  church  was  not 
conscious  of  these  facts.     It  would  not  have  ad- 
mitted them  to  be  facts.     It  must  pay  tribute  to  its 
original  ideal  by  regarding  the  organization  which 
through  two  hundred  years  had  been  growing  up 
in  most  natural  fashion  among  the  Christians,  as 
not  the  outcome  of  the  working  of  the  spirit  of  the 


256   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

good  in  leading  men,  but  as  the  ordinance  of  the 
Apostles  and  as  given  by  the  authority  of  Christ 
from  earliest  days.  It  was  a  practical  necessity 
that  the  bishop  should  rule  by  right,  and,  if  need 
be,  also  by  might.  But  that  right  and  might  must 
not  be  thought  of  as  if  they  were  derived  from 
men.  They  must  be  deemed  to  have  been  con- 
ferred in  the  gift  and  grace  of  God.  Even  the 
most  questionable  and  oppressive  phases  of  this 
right  and  might  must  be  thought  of  as  ordained 
by  Christ  and  the  Apostles  from  the  first. 

Other  institutions  beside  the  church  have  claimed 
that  their  authority  was  by  divine  right.  We  rever- 
ently acknowledge  the  divineness  of  what  is  right. 
But  assuredly  nothing  can  have  a  divine  right  to 
be  in  the  wrong.  And,  least  of  all,  ought  we  to 
assert  that  God  confers  upon  men  or  institutions 
the  divine  right  to  be  in  the  wrong.  We  must 
even  assert  that  when  that  which  claims  divine 
right,  though  still  good,  is  no  longer  the  best,  then 
the  divine  right  has  clearly  passed  onward  to  that 
which  is  better.  In  this  movement  of  human  insti- 
tutions and  experience  lies  the  advance  of  men  and 
the  progressive  revelation  of  God. 

If  we  ask  ourselves  who  is  to  be  the  judge  of 
this  good  and  better  and  best,  even  in  the  case 
of  those  institutions  which  claim  to  be  divine,  we 
must  answer,  solemnly,  humanity,  and  in  the  last 
analysis,  the  individual  man,  the  soul  of  the  man 
who  seeks  the  good.  If  it  be  answered  that  the 
final  outcome  is,  then,  the  assertion  of  the  right  of 


CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT  2^7 

human  reason,  we  must  call  it  rather  the  devout 
assumption  of  human  responsibility,  the  acknowl- 
edgment of  a  responsibility  which  we  cannot  escape 
if  we  would,  and,  trusting  ourselves  to  God,  we 
would  not  if  we  could. 

But  if  the  Roman  church  erred  in  taking  the 
practical  issue  of  several  centuries  of  experience 
and  projecting  that  against  the  time  of  the 
Apostles,  so  as  to  make  it  appear  that  the  deposit 
of  its  own  history  was  an  original  ordainment  of 
Christ,  the  Protestants  erred  on  their  part  in  sup- 
posing that  by  the  recovery,  as  nearly  as  might  be, 
of  the  simple  state  of  things  which  obtained  in 
the  Apostolic  Age  we  should  secure  the  most 
perfect  adaptation  to  the  complex  conditions  of  the 
seventeenth  or  of  the  twentieth  century.  Because 
the  mediaeval  church  seemed  to  have  got  far  away 
from  the  conditions  of  the  time  of  Christ  and  of  the 
Apostles,  men  deemed  that  we  should  be  saved  by 
going  back  to  those  conditions.  We  shall  never 
be  saved  by  going  backward.  We  can  never  re- 
construct conditions.  In  this  sense  even  the  devout 
cry  which  we  hear  so  much  in  our  day,  "  Back  to 
Christ,"  is  misleading.  We  shall  never  be  saved 
by  going  back,  even  to  Christ,  save  as  we  mean  that 
we  go  back  to  Christ  to  gather,  if  we  can,  something 
of  his  perfect  spirit  out  of  the  manifestation  of  that 
spirit  in  his  work,  and  then  go  boldly  forward 
with  intelligence  and  courage  to  do  our  own  work, 
in  our  own  way,  and  not  in  Christ's  way  and  not 
in   the  Apostles'   way.      The   rigid  adherence  to 


2 58   CANONIZATION  AND  CHURCH  GOVERNMENT 

what  men  take  to  be  gospel  simplicity  of  church 
organization,  in  an  age  like  our  own  whose  task  is 
not  simple;  the  insistence  upon  the  old  issue  of 
individualism  in  an  age  when  everything  makes  for 
social  endeavor  and  combination,  is  the  path  of 
defeat,  despite  all  the  devout  intention  through 
which  that  defeat  may  come  to  pass.  Painful 
experience  has  brought  the  Protestant  bodies,  for 
the  most  part,  to  the  pass  where  they  admit  that 
they  must  seek  a  reconstruction  of  the  church 
through  power  of  combination  and  of  effective 
organization  for  its  new  life  and  work.  And  in 
that  reorganization  of  the  church  which  w^e  cer- 
tainly face,  there  are,  in  our  own  age,  as  there  were 
for  the  organization  of  the  church  in  the  great 
creative  period  which  we  have  been  studying,  two 
duties.  The  one  of  these  duties  is  that  of  the 
rational  and  fearless  appropriation  of  the  materials 
of  the  actual  world  in  which  we  live,  as  the  early 
church  appropriated  elements  from  the  synagogue 
and  from  the  Gentile  societies  among  which  it  was 
thrown.  The  other  duty  is  that  of  fidelity  to  the 
pure  and  luminous  ideal,  ethical  and  not  ecclesi- 
astical, the  legacy  to  his  institution  of  Christ's  own 
beautiful  and  holy  spirit,  the  impulse  which  in  this 
lecture  we  have  endeavored  to  describe. 


LECTURE   VII 

THE  CANONIZATION  AND  THE  BEGIN- 
NINGS OF  THE  HISTORY  OF 
DOCTRINE 


LECTURE   VII 

THE  CANONIZATION  AND  THE  BEGIN- 
NINGS OF  THE  HISTORY  OF 
DOCTRINE 

We  have  to  speak  in  this  lecture  of  the  begin- 
nings of  Christian  doctrine.  In  respect  of  the 
history  of  doctrine  also  we  have  to  note  the  great 
transformation  through  which  Christianity  passed 
in  the  last  generation  of  the  second  century. 
From  this  new  side  we  may  throw  light  upon  the 
process  of  the  canonization.  The  doctrinal  move- 
ment also  presents  a  striking  and  suggestive  par- 
allel to  the  rise  of  the  New  Testament.  In  the 
evolution  of  doctrine  and  in  the  crystallization 
of  doctrine  into  authoritative  dogma,  we  shall 
observe  the  working  of  the  same  forces  with 
which  we  are  familiar  in  the  transformation  of 
the  early  Christian  literature  into  the  Canon  of  the 
new  dispensation.  To  the  Apostles  themselves 
were  attributed  propositions  whose  general  sense, 
indeed,  had  been  inherited  in  the  apostolic  churches, 
but  whose  form  of  statement  and  whose  use  as  a 
creed  reflected  the  conditions  which  prevailed  in 
the  middle  of  the  second  century.  In  like  manner 
a  literature  whose  relation  to  the  Christian  origins 

261 


262       CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

and  whose  spiritual  quality  had  given  it  a  unique 
place  in  the  Christian  communities,  came  to  be 
viewed  almost  as  if  the  Apostles  themselves  had 
established  it  as  an  authoritative  canon  from  the 
beginning.  And  as  we  have  seen,  the  development 
of  church  government,  pursuing  the  same  general 
course  and  having  the  same  historic  justification, 
yet  falls  in  the  end  under  the  same  explanation. 
It  seems  obvious  that  Jesus  himself  taught 
nothing  in  the  least  degree  resembling  a  system 
of  theology.  He  revealed  a  religion.  Or,  more 
accurately,  he  made  a  definite  and  supreme 
advance  upon  all  religion  which  had  thus  far 
been  revealed.  But  for  the  most  fundamental 
propositions  in  religion  he  rarely  argued.  What 
was  newest  and  most  original  in  his  teaching 
he  did  not  undertake  in  the  conventional  sense 
to  demonstrate.  He  clothed,  indeed,  a  part  of 
his  teaching  in  the  forms  in  which  his  own 
nation  had  cherished  its  Messianic  hope.  And 
in  appropriating  to  his  own  meaning  figures  to 
which  his  contemporaries  attached  a  different 
sense,  he  laid  himself  open  to  misunderstanding, 
even  while  he  sought  a  clearer  understanding 
on  the  part  of  those  to  whom  he  spoke.  But 
he  never  tried  to  make  his  sublime  moral 
teaching  acceptable  to  men  by  setting  it  in  rela- 
tion to  any  philosophy  then  current.  His  appeal 
is  a  clear  one  to  the  ethical  consciousness  and  to 
men's  experience.  His  interest  is  mainly  in  the 
personal    and   practical,    not   at  all  in  the   meta- 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       263 

physical.  His  favorite  reasoning  is,  for  substance, 
this  :  Try  what  I  say  and  see  if  it  is  not  true. 
**  If  any  man  will  do  His  will  he  shall  know  of 
the  doctrine  whether  it  be  of  God  or  whether  I 
speak  of  myself."  No  man  ever  spoke  with  a 
more  immediate  personal  authority.  But  the 
basis  upon  which  he  rests  that  authority  is 
revealed  in  that  astounding  sentence,  so  httle 
like  the  words  of  those  who  have  loudly  claimed 
authority :  ''  If  any  man  believe  not  my  word 
I  judge  him  not.  But  the  word  which  I  have 
spoken  will  judge  him  at  the  last  day."  The 
authority  is  simply  that  of  the  truth  itself,  and 
the  final  test  of  that  truth  is  experience.  The 
final  proof  of  the  authority  of  truth  to  any  man 
is  that  man's  free  experience  of  that  truth. 

It  is  almost  miisleading  to  call  Jesus  the  founder 
of  a  religion.  By  that  phrase  it  is  usually  meant 
to  bring  him  into  comparison  with  those  reli- 
ofious  founders  who  have  offered  to  the  world  a 
system  of  thought  or  an  ascetic  discipline  of  Hfe, 
a  ritual  practice,  or  something  of  that  sort.  Jesus, 
strictly  speaking,  did  none  of  these  things.  He 
seems  to  have  aimed  to  show  men  how,  in  love  and 
joy,  to  live  the  common  Hfe,  in  full  sense  of  the 
presence  of  God  and  of  eternity.  His  greatest  con- 
tribution was  that  in  joy  and  love  he  lived  that  life. 
The  contrast  between  religion  and  life,  fundamental 
to  so  many  others,  was  completely  alien  to  him.  To 
him  true  religion  was  life,  and  religion  was  the  true 
life.     The  things  which  men  have  confounded  with 


264      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

religion,  thoughts  concerning  it,  discipline  of  will 
and  feehng  in  it,  certain  activities  under  the  im- 
pulse of  religion,  these  are  not  ends  in  themselves. 
They  are  only  means  to  an  end,  and  that  end  is  life. 
By  personal  fidelity  to  his  own  rule,  by  being  the 
exalted  impersonation  of  the  holiest  things  which 
he  enjoined,  he  stamped  the  beauty  and  obHgation 
of  these  things  upon  the  small  circle  of  those  who 
were  the  witnesses  of  his  career.  And  these  went 
forth  to  spread  the  knowledge  of  that  life  and  the 
practice  of  it  among  men.  This  unspeculative  char- 
acter of  his  teaching  is  one  thing  which  has  given 
it  its  permanent  hold  upon  the  minds  of  men,  and 
has  fitted  it  for  appropriation  to  the  thought  and 
life  of  every  age. 

But  in  both  these  particulars,  in  respect,  that 
is,  of  the  purity  of  the  religious  intuition  of  Jesus, 
its  slight  commingHng  with  any  philosophical 
or  other  elements,  and  in  respect  also  of  the 
mode  of  apprehension  of  his  authority,  the  case 
was  different  with  some  even  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment writers.  The  Synoptists  offer  what  are,  in 
form,  simple  statements  of  fact  concerning  Jesus' 
sayings  and  doings.  But,  strictly,  what  we  can 
gather  from  their  narrative  is  the  witness  to  their 
understanding  of  those  facts.  This  is  all  that  in 
the  nature  of  the  case  we  can  ever  gather  from 
testimony  to  facts.  And  the  EvangeUsts'  under- 
standing of  these  facts  took  form  inevitably  from 
thoughts  brought  along  with  them  from  their  own 
past.     It  took  up  into  itself  elements  which  had 


CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       265 

their  origin  in  the  type  of  culture  and  the  prevailing 
apprehensions  of  the  age.  What  we  are  here  speak- 
ing of  may  be  described  as  the  result  of  the  uncon- 
scious reflection  of  the  witnesses.  It  is  the  mere 
consequence  of  the  fact  that  whatever  presents 
itself  to  men  is  taken  up  into  their  minds  and  given 
off  again  in  the  forms  natural  to  the  working  of 
those  minds. 

But  the  Epistles,  without  exception,  show  the 
beginnings  also  of  a  conscious  reflection  upon 
Jesus  and  upon  the  life  of  the  Christian  man.  It 
is  this  deliberate  reflection  which  makes  of  Paul 
the  earliest  Christian  theologian.  It  was  by  this 
reflection  that  Paul  assimilated  the  revelation  to 
his  own  intense  intellectual  life,  an  intellectual  life 
so  much  more  intense  than  that  of  any  of  the 
authors  of  the  synoptic  tradition.  It  was  through 
this  deliberate  reflection  that  he  sought  to  bring 
home  the  meaning  and  power  of  the  revelation  to 
the  thought  and  life  of  those  to  whom  he  preached. 
The  men  could  but  reflect.  The  inspiration  of 
Jesus  was  the  most  powerful  stimulus  to  the  men- 
tal nature,  as  well  as  to  the  moral  purposes.  And 
beside  Paul  two,  at  least,  of  the  authors  of  the  New 
Testament  have  recorded  their  reflections  upon  the 
largest  scale.  These  are  the  author  of  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  and  the  author  of  the  Gospel  ac- 
cording to  John.  It  is  part  of  the  fulness  of  the 
New  Testament  for  which  we  must  give  thanks 
that  we  have  thus  the  image  of  Jesus  as  be  is  mir- 
rored in  at  least  three  distinct  tvDcs  of  mind.     We 


266       CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

have  his  impulse  as  it  is  assimilated  to  and  given 
off  again  from  at  least  three  defined  modes  of 
thought.  And  we  deprive  ourselves  of  the  very 
advantage  of  this  state  of  things  if,  while  we  urge 
the  oneness  of  the  source  of  the  impulse,  we  fail 
to  reckon  with  the  diversity  of  these  modes  of 
thought  and  with  the  inevitable  consequence  of 
this  diversity  for  the  presentations  of  the  truth 
concerning  Jesus  which  they  severally  make. 

The  background  with  all  of  these  New  Testa- 
ment authors  was,  in  one  way  or  another,  Judaism. 
With  Paul  it  was  actual  rabbinism.  In  all  three 
of  the  great  authors  we  have  named  there  is  a 
strain  besides,  which  came  to  them  through  con- 
tact with  Hellenism.  In  Paul  this  strain  is  slight. 
He  quotes  a  Greek  poet,  but  remains  a  Jew  of 
Jews.  His  Hellenism  was  only  at  second  hand. 
But  in  both  of  our  other  types  this  strain  is  Alex- 
andrianism,  less  or  more.  In  the  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  it  goes  not  much  deeper  than  to  the 
allegorizing  treatment  of  narrative,  and  to  things 
of  that  sort.  But  in  the  Fourth  Gospel  this  ele- 
ment is  subtle  and  pervasive.  It  reaches  to  the 
profoundest  depths  of  speculation  as  to  the  nature 
of  God,  the  person  of  Christ,  the  possibility  of 
incarnation,  the  idea  of  redemption.  The  recog- 
nition of  this  progress  of  doctrine  within  the  New 
Testament  itself  is  one  of  the  main  aids  to  the 
understanding  of  the  New  Testament.  It  helps 
also  to  the  understanding  of  the  inevitableness  and 
the  historic  right  of   the  progress  of  doctrine  in 


CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      26/ 

the  Christian  church  in  all  ages,  to  which  this 
progress  which  we  see  within  the  New  Testament 
itself  was  but  the  gate. 

It  is,  of  course,  not  our  task  to  attempt  to  indi- 
cate the  historical  sources  or  the  speculative  worth 
of  these  beginnings,  within  the  covers  of  the  New 
Testament  itself,  of  the  interpretation  of  the  word 
and  work  of  Jesus.  The  sole  point  with  which  we 
are  here  concerned  is  to  make  clear  that  these  main 
documents  of  the  New  Testament  are  interpreta- 
tions. These  representations  of  Jesus  within  the 
New  Testament  itself  are  composite,  on  the  one 
hand  of  the  spiritual  impression  which  the  career 
and  teachings  of  Jesus  made  upon  the  writers,  and 
on  the  other  hand,  of  ideas  in  the  realm  of  which 
the  authors  lived  and  moved,  and  in  which  the 
original  readers  also  were  probably  supposed  to 
move.  The  New  Testament  writings,  in  one  view 
of  them,  thus  themselves  constituted  the  earliest 
stages  of  the  history  of  Christian  doctrine.  And 
these  beginnings  of  orderly  reflection  upon  Jesus, 
of  interpretation  of  his  teaching,  of  speculation 
concerning  his  work  and  person,  which  we  have 
thus  seen  within  the  covers  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, could  but  be  followed  up.  It  is  true  that 
the  stratum  of  society  to  which  Christianity  in  the 
two  generations  following  that  of  the  Apostles 
mainly  appealed,  was  not  much  given  to  specu- 
lation. The  adherents  of  Christianity  at  this  time 
were  gathered  chiefly  from  among  the  simple 
people,  from  the  poor,  and  even  from  the  slaves. 


268       CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

The  simplicity  of  Jesus  was  better  adapted  to  these 
than  was  the  reasoning  of  Paul  or  the  mysticism 
of  John.  It  is  well  known  that  it  was  not  until 
after  the  time  of  Marcion  that  the  influence  of 
Paul  began  to  be  great.  The  Judaizing  hatred 
of  Paul  accounts  in  some  measure  for  this  fact. 
But  the  remoteness  and  the  difficulty  of  some  of 
Paul's  ideas  accounts  for  it  yet  more.  It  has  been 
doubted  whether  Paulinism,  that  extraordinary  ad- 
justment of  Paul's  new  revelation  to  his  Judaism, 
ever  fully  commanded  any  mind  save  that  of  the 
creator  of  the  system,  and  this  upon  the  basis 
which  his  own  personal  history  and  strong  indi- 
viduality had  given.  It  is  well  known  that  the 
influence  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  was,  until  tow- 
ard the  end  of  the  second  century,  so  slight 
that  it  was  possible  for  some  men  seventy  years 
ago  to  hold  that  the  Fourth  Gospel  had  not  come 
into  existence  until  the  end  of  that  century.  That 
notion  is  now  wholly  abandoned.  But  that  it  ever 
could  have  vbeen  held  is  a  proof  that  the  influence 
of  this  Gospel  upon  the  doctrinal  development  of 
that  earliest  time  was  shght.  But  when  men  of 
a  different  stratum  of  society  began  to  take  their 
place  in  the  Christian  community,  when  Christian- 
ity intellectually,  as  well  as  practically,  began  to 
make  itself  at  home  in  the  world,  the  change  came 
very  rapidly. 

There  was,  on  the  part  of  some,  a  disposition  to 
regard  Christianity  in  the  light  of  a  new  law. 
Through  all  the  stages  of  Ebionism  this  tendency 


CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      269 

may  be  described  as  a  relapse  toward  Judaism, 
with  no  Christian  tenet  left  except  the  one,  that 
Messiah  had  come.  The  Old  Testament  rehgion  had 
been  prevailingly  apprehended  as  a  law.  Then 
there  was  what  we  may  call  a  lapse  toward  popular 
heathenism.  It  was  the  attempt  to  mingle  with 
Christianity  rites  and  forms  gathered  out  of  the 
religions  of  the  East,  and  to  give  the  Christian  facts 
a  place  in  the  mythology  of  these  religions.  To 
men  who  were  themselves  philosophers  this  sort  of 
thing  was  empty.  But  these  men  had,  in  their 
turn,  their  own  way  of  domesticating  Christianity 
in  the  intellectual  life  of  the  world.  Their  way  was 
not  to  make  of  it  a  new  law,  like  those  first,  and 
not  a  new  mythology,  like  the  second,  but  a  new 
philosophy.  They  tended  to  handle  the  Gospel  as 
merely  a  revealed  and  divinely  authoritative  phi- 
losophy. They  were  in  danger  of  evaporating  the 
whole  thing  into  metaphysics,  and  of  losing  all  in- 
terest in  the  ethical  significance  of  Jesus.  This 
last  class,  although  clearly  distinguished  in  prin- 
ciple, was  not  always  sharply  marked  off  in  fact 
from  the  preceding  one.  There  were  not  a  few  of 
the  Gnostics  with  whom  it  would  have  been  hard  to 
say  where  the  speculative  element  left  off  and  the 
mythological  element  began.  And  then,  in  the 
fourth  place,  there  were  men  like  the  Mon- 
tanists,  who  repudiated  culture  of  every  sort,  who 
claimed  to  revive  the  primitive  inspiration  and 
enthusiasm,  whose  teaching  issued,  in  some  cases, 
in  monstrosities  and  vagaries  absurd  and  iniquitous. 


270      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

Against  these  things  what  could  the  church 
do  ?  Men  said  :  We  will  go  back  to  Jesus  and  the 
Apostles.  We  will  ask,  What  is  Christie  and  apos- 
tolic teaching  ?  We  will  hold  ourselves  to  that. 
They  did  go  back  to  Jesus.  They  did  what  men 
since  that  time  have  often  done  when  they  used  that 
great  phrase,  "  Back  to  Jesus  !  "  They  took  every- 
thing they  had  back  with  them.  There  can  be  no 
manner  of  doubt  that  this  was  that  which  the 
church  at  the  end  of  the  second  century  faithfully 
tried  to  do.  It  sought  to  go  back  to  the  Apostles 
and  to  Jesus.  We  have  seen  the  men  of  that 
time  making  a  more  and  more  sharply  defined 
Canon  of  New  Testament  Scripture,  as  part  of 
their  effort  to  find  out  just  what  Jesus,  and  the 
Apostles  under  the  immediate  inspiration  of  Jesus, 
had  said.  We  have  seen  them  building  up  a  strong 
and  authoritative  organization  of  the  church,  one 
of  the  foremost  uses  of  which  authority  was  the 
settlement  of  questions  of  interpretation  of  what 
Jesus  and  the  Apostles  had  said.  And  now,  as  we 
shall  go  into  it  a  little  more  in  detail,  we  shall  see, 
at  this  same  time,  the  growth  of  the  idea  of  a  per- 
manent doctrinal  tradition  in  the  Christian  church, 
in  which  that  infallible  interpretation  had  been  from 
the  first  embodied.  We  shall  watch  the  growth  of 
the  assumption  that  there  had  always  been  an  apos- 
tolic dogma  in  the  church. 

It  was  the  same  Irenseus  who  put  forth  this  idea, 
whom  before  we  saw,  as  the  asserter  of  the  apos- 
tolic form  of   church  government,  and  who   had 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       2/1 

held  of  the  Gospels  that  they  could  not  be  less  or 
more  than  four.  So  here,  Irenaeus  held  that  the 
churches  founded  by  Apostles  had  in  his  time 
and  had  always  had,  a  uniform  doctrinal  tradition. ^ 
This  agreement  of  the  apostoHc  churches,  together 
with  the  continuity  of  their  agreement  since  the 
apostolic  age,  gave  to  these  churches  an  authority 
in  doctrine  which  was  decisive  for  all  the  churches. 
He  thought  of  this  sacred  deposit  of  dogma  as 
he  had  thought  of  the  tradition  of  church  govern- 
ment and  of  the  Canon,  as  something  given  of 
God  from  the  beginning,  necessary  for  men,  and 
part  of  the  constitution  of  the  universal  church. 
Of  course,  in  the  sense  in  which  Irenaeus  con- 
ceived this,  such  an  agreement  of  doctrine  in 
the  apostoHc  churches  did  not  exist.  It  never  had 
existed.  But  most  wonderful  is  the  degree  in 
which  now,  swiftly,  under  the  growing  authority 
of  the  catholic  church  and  under  the  impulse  of 
other  forces  with  which  by  this  time  we  are  famil- 
iar, such  a  doctrinal  agreement  came  to  exist. 
And  it  came  to  be  exercised  as  an  instrument  of 
tremendous  practical  force.  It  is  the  basis  of  the 
principle  of  doctrinal  tradition  in  the  Roman 
church.  It  is  that  which  was  later  described  by 
Vincent  of  Lerins  in  his  famous  phrase :  ''  Quod 
ubique,  quod  semper,  quod  ab  omnibus  creditum 
est — hoc  est  vere  proprieque  catholicum."^ 

If  we  are  right  in  our  distinction  between  doctrine 

^  A(/v.  Hares.,  i,  lo.  2,  iii.  3.  i,  and  iii.  4.  i. 
2  Commonitorium,  3. 


2/2       CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

and  dogma,  the  development  of  doctrine  itself  is  as 
natural  and  as  necessary  as  the  rising  of  each  new 
day's  sun.  Doctrine  is  nothing  more  than  the  ad- 
justment of  a  man's  rehgious  ideas  to  all  the  other 
ideas  which  as  a  child  of  his  time  he  holds.  The 
evolution  of  doctrine  is  simply  the  thinking  over 
again  of  the  thoughts  concerning  religion  in  the  Hght 
of  all  the  other  thoughts  which  possess  a  new  gen- 
eration and  in  the  characteristic  spirit  of  the  life 
of  that  generation.  It  is  the  recasting  of  the  con- 
tent of  the  religious  consciousness  so  as  to  bring 
this  into  a  form  which  is  harmonious  with  the 
other  elements  given  in  consciousness.  In  this 
sense  it  would  appear  that  a  doctrine  which  had 
no  evolution  and  made  no  progress  was  the  oppo- 
site of  doctrinal  truth.  Movement  and  change 
belong  to  the  conception  of  the  thing.  It  is  only 
the  reHgion  itself,  and  not  the  interpretation  of  it, 
which  can  be  permanent. 

But  this  amalgamation  of  pure  moral  and  reli- 
gious intuition  with  the  speculative  or  other  notions 
of  a  given  time  —  and  such  an  amalgam  doctrine 
always  is  —  may  be  assumed  to  have  been  under- 
taken in  the  interest  of  making  religious  truth 
more  intelligible  to  the  men  of  that  time.  At 
least,  it  is  the  form  in  which  the  man  of  the  new 
time  makes  that  religious  truth  intelligible  to  him- 
self and  holds  secure  possession  of  it  for  himself. 
Doctrine  commands  our  reverence  as  the  human 
form  in  which  the  divine  truth  has  temporar- 
ily  done   its  work.      It  is   one  of   the   series  of 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY   OF    DOCTRINE       2/3 

human  forms  in  which  the  divine  truth  must 
always  do  its  work.  It  taxes  our  ingenuity  to 
separate  these  entirely  separable  elements.  But 
the  comparison  of  successive  stages  of  doctrine 
and  of  long  intervals  in  its  history  is  the  very 
thing  which  gives  us  light  upon  the  question  as 
to  what  the  permanent  element  of  the  religion  is. 
The  study  of  doctrinal  development,  in  order  to 
the  discovery  of  what  is  the  passing  and  what 
the  permanent  element  of  religion,  is  one  of  the 
worthiest  tasks  to  which  a  religious  man  could  set 
himself.  For  if  the  intellectual  element  in  the  com- 
bination be  no  longer  current  but  have  become 
obsolete,  it  hinders  rather  than  helps  men  in  the  un- 
derstanding of  the  religious  truth.  It  prevents  the 
adjustment  of  that  religious  truth  to  the  mental 
life  of  a  new  time.  It  makes  institutions  station- 
ary and  futile  which,  when  they  keep  pace  with 
the  world,  have  the  highest  usefulness.  And  if 
insisted  upon,  it  may  occasion  the  rejection  of  the 
religious  truth  altogether. 

And  this  disturbing  factor  is  still  further  en- 
hanced when  that  which  had  a  perfectly  proper 
place  as  a  phase  of  doctrine  cognate  to  the  culture 
of  a  given  time,  becomes  dogma.  Dogma  is  doc- 
trine which  has  forgotten  that  it  ever  had  a  history, 
and  ceased  to  discriminate  between  its  own  pass- 
ing and  permanent,  its  own  human  and  divine, 
elements.  Dogma  is  doctrine  which  has  been 
invested  by  the  decree  of  institutions,  or  by  the 
overwhelming  sense  of  its  adherents,  with  author- 


2/4      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

ity  of  a  kind  of  which  very  possibly  the  authors 
of  the  doctrine  never  dreamed.  Dogma  is  doc- 
trine which,  instead  of  being  authoritative  because 
it  creates  conviction,  seeks  to  create  conviction 
because  it  claims  to  be  authoritative.  Dogma  is 
doctrine  made  binding,  not  upon  those  to  whom 
its  truth  is  obvious,  but  upon  all  and  always,  and 
simply  because  the  institution  or  the  consensus 
of  its  adherents  has  said  that  it  should  be  bind- 
ing. Dogma  in  the  scientific  sense  is  that  part 
of  doctrine  which  has  been  sanctioned  by  the 
constituted  authorities  of  recognized  ecclesiasti- 
cal bodies.  And,  for  practical  purposes,  we  can 
reckon  only  with  those  main  bodies  which  have 
attained  permanence  and  exerted  a  large  influence. 
But  if,  in  the  strict  sense  of  these  definitions,  we 
should  ask  ourselves  concerning  the  history  of 
dogma,  we  should  have  to  say  that  although  even 
dogma  has  had  some  history,  although  adjust- 
ments even  of  authoritative  religious  statements 
have  from  time  to  time  been  forced,  yet  always 
this  history  wears  the  air  of  being  a  history  which 
those  who  cherished  the  dogma  did  not  intend  to 
have.  History  is  the  contradictory  of  dogma;  as 
conversely,  the  failure  to  make  history  is  the  de- 
nial of  the  true  nature  of  doctrine. 

Such  a  transformation  of  the  doctrine  of  their 
own  generation  into  a  dogma  for  all  generations 
was  the  work  of  the  men  of  that  critical  period  at 
the  end  of  the  second  century  of  which  we  have 
said  so  much.     We  need  not  suppose  that   they 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       2/5 

were  conscious  of  this  nature  of  the  work  which 
they  did.  But  in  these  very  years,  and  in  the 
closest  possible  connection  with  that  movement 
which  we  have  seen  producing  an  authoritative 
Canon  of  the  New  Testament  and  an  authoritative 
form  of  ecclesiastical  organization,  we  shall  see  also 
the  crystallization  out  of  the  fluid  state  of  doctrine 
of  a  uniform  and  authoritative  Rule  of  Faith, 
which  was  at  that  very  time,  indeed,  for  substance 
and  in  the  shape  of  the  Roman  baptismal  symbol, 
attributed  to  the  Apostles,  but  whose  matured 
statement  received  later  the  actual  name  "  The 
Apostles'  Creed."  Therewith  is  not  said  but  that 
the  main  points  of  the  Apostles'  Creed  did  reach 
back  in  the  tradition  of  the  apostolic  churches  to 
the  Apostles  themselves.  But  the  bringing  of 
these  tenets  to  consciousness,  the  phrasing  them 
in  a  particular  way,  the  gathering  them  into  a 
creed,  the  clothing  of  that  creed  with  dogmatic 
authority,  the  exacting  of  the  confession  of  it  from 
candidates  for  baptism  —  these  were  the  new  ele- 
ments. The  attribution  of  the  Rule  of  Faith,  as 
rule  of  faith,  to  the  Apostles  put  these  elements  in 
false  perspective.  These  new  elements,  also,  were 
now  assumed  to  have  been  present  ever  since  the 
time  of  the  Apostles,  whereas,  in  truth,  they  had 
but  just  come  into  existence. 

But  let  us  try  in  brief  to  outHne  the  thing  which 
has  thus  come  to  pass. 

When  one  reflects  how  manifold  were  the  ele- 
ments from  which  converts  to  the  Christian  faith 


2/6      CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

were  drawn  in  the  century  from  the  death  of  Paul 
to  the  death  of  Justin,  from  about  the  year  65  to 
the  year  165,  one  realizes  how  difficult  it  would 
be  to  define,  even  in  a  rough  way,  that  type  of 
teaching  which  was  common  to  all  these  elements. 
And  yet  the  vigor  with  which  Gnosticism  was 
ultimately  cast  out  of  the  church  shows  that 
there  was  a  common  teaching  among  Christians 
throughout  the  world,  which  ultimately  came  to 
clear  consciousness  in  ^the  Christian  body  as  its 
inestimably  precious  inheritance  of  truth.  Re- 
garding the  body  of  writings  long  in  common 
possession,  we  have  seen  the  Christians  suddenly 
become  aware  of  them  as  the  documents  of  their 
faith  and  the  new  Canon  of  their  sacred  Scripture. 
It  is  not  that  the  documents  then  first  came  into 
the  possession,  or  even  into  use  in  the  Christian 
church.  But  then  first  the  church  came  to  the 
consciousness  of  that  which  these  documents  sig- 
nified. It  is  not  that  the  main  doctrinal  state- 
ments attributed  to  the  Apostles  and  elevated 
to  the  dignity  of  a  rule  of  faith  thus  first  became 
the  inheritance  of  Christians.  But  then  first  they 
were  asserted  as  the  essential  element  in  that 
inheritance  and  the  element  which,  with  all  else 
that  might  change,  must  abide. 

Of  this  common  body  of  doctrine  a  few  main 
points  may  be  named.^  The  Gospel  rests  upon  im- 
mediate revelation.  It  is  a  message  from  God  to 
man,  the  acceptance  of  which  in  faith  assures  salva- 

1  See  Harnack,  Dogmeiigeschichie,  i.,  1886,  pp.  100  ff. 


CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      2/7 

tion.    Essential  elements  of  this  message  from  God 
are   these:    the   demand   for  repentance   of   past 
sins  and  for  the  struggle  after  righteousness ;  the 
assurance  of  forgiveness  and  of  the  final  victory 
over  evil ;  and  the  promise  of  the  resurrection  and 
of  eternal  Hfe.      An  essential  point,  also,  in  this 
primitive  faith  is  that  this  Gospel  has  com^e  to  men 
through  Jesus  Christ.     It  is  he  who  has  set  forth 
these  truths  concerning  man  and  made  known  the 
favoring  will  and  the  redeeming  love  of  God.    He  is 
the  Saviour  whom  God  has  sent  into  the  world.    He 
stands  in  unique  relation  to  God.    In  a  peculiar  sense 
he  is  the  Son  of  God.     He  has  true  and  full  knowl- 
edge of  God.     To  him,  as  reconciler  with  God,  as 
teacher  and  exemplar  and  spiritual  power  for  the 
life  of  men,  they  are  to  commit  themselves.     In  his 
spirit  men  are  not  to  seek  after  the  goods  of  this 
world.    They  are  to  feel  themselves  lifted  above 
many  of  the  conditions  of  life  in  this  world,  since 
Christ  himself  was  a  citizen  of  Heaven  and  only  a 
sojourner  upon  earth. 

This  glad  message,  which  Jesus  himself  received 
from  God,  he  committed  to  Apostles  to  be  preached. 
And  beside  that,  the  spirit  of  God  is  to  rule  in  the 
hearts  of  all  Christians.  It  is  this  spirit  which 
confers  gifts  and  graces.  It  is  this  spirit  which 
still  sends  forth  inspired  prophets.  The  simple 
rites  of  Baptism  and  the  Lord's  Supper  are  both 
reminders  of  the  grace  of  God  which  has  been 
given  to  men  and  symbols  of  the  grace  which  is 
yet  to  be  given.     Differences  of  sex,  of  age,  of 


2/8      CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

rank,  of  nationality,  of  education,  and  even  of 
ancient  religious  privilege,  such  as  that  of  the 
Jews  —  all  differences  which  built  barriers  divid- 
ing men  are  to  disappear,  since  the  call  of  God  is 
to  all  men.  The  Christian  community  rests  solely 
upon  that  call.  Through  the  blamelessness  of 
their  walk  and  in  the  spirit  of  brotherhood  to  all 
men,  the  Christians  are  to  prove  to  the  world  the 
truth  of  Christianity.  The  hope  that  Christ  is 
coming  soon  again  to  gather  under  his  own  rule 
his  people,  scattered  as  they  are  among  all  nations, 
is  not  the  least  of  the  forces  which  determine  the 
Christian  faith  and  life. 

The  basis  of  this  simple  faith  of  the  earliest 
communities  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Old  Testa- 
ment and  the  tradition  concerning  the  teaching  and 
life  of  Jesus.  The  Christian  interpretation  made 
out  of  the  Old  Testament  a  Christian  book.  In 
fact,  the  Christians  were  the  only  ones  who  truly 
interpreted  the  book.  The  Christians  were  the 
new  and  true  people  of  God  to  whom  all  the 
promises  belonged.  The  Jews  had  forfeited  these 
in  the  rejection  of  Christ.  As  to  the  tradition 
concerning  Jesus,  it  would  seem  that,  from  very 
early  times,  along  with  the  citation  of  the  words 
of  Jesus,  there  went  a  brief  account  of  his  life 
and  deeds  as  well.  These  were  perhaps  first 
deHneated  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  fulfilment 
of  prophecy.  This  was,  at  all  events,  the  point  of 
view  of  the  Gospel  according  to  Matthew,  and 
presumably  of  the  source  of  Matthew.     It  was  the 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      2/9 

point  of  view  which  would  most  appeal  to  those 
Christians  who  had  themselves  been  devout  Jews. 
But  then  again  this  narrative  concerning  Jesus 
was  shaped  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  portrayal 
of  the  wonderful  works  of  Jesus  as  the  authenti- 
cation of  his  message.  This  is  the  point  of  view 
of  the  Gospel  according  to  Mark. 

Very  early,  three  phrases  stand  out  as  a  sort  of 
summary  of  this  primitive  faith.  There  is,  first, 
the  declaration  of  belief  in  God  the  Father 
Almighty.  Then  also  there  is  the  profession  of 
faith  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God.  And,  finally, 
there  is  the  assertion  of  belief  in  that  Holy  Spirit 
which  had  spoken  through  the  Prophets,  which 
had  dwelt  in  all  fulness  in  Jesus,  and  which  dwells 
now  in  the  hearts  of  the  obedient.  It  is  easy 
to  see  that  these  were  the  three  assertions  under 
which  all  others  could  be  grouped.  These  were 
the  logical  centres  around  w^hich  almost  every- 
thing could  be  arranged  which  was  said  in  the 
New  Testament  interpretations  of  the  Gospel.  In 
the  century  from  about  the  year  60  to  the  year 
160  this  confession  passes  current  in  the  general 
sense  of  it.^  But  it  is  not  reduced  to  any  fixed 
formula.  It  admits,  rather,  of  most  various  formu- 
lation. These  simple  statements  stand  in  manifold 
relation  the  one  to  the  other,  and  to  the  inferences 
which  are  based  upon  them  all.     It  is  first  in  the 

1  First  Clem.  Iviii.  2,  xlii.  3,  and  xlvi.  6;  Didache,  7;  Ignatius, 
Eph.  ix.  I,  and  Magn.  xiii.  i.  2  ;  Martyr.  Polyc.  xiv.  i.  2.  See 
Harnack,  Dogmengeschichte,  Bd.  i.,  p.  107. 


280      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

Roman  community  and  after  the  middle  of  the 
second  century,  that  we  find  an  exact  form  of  words 
insisted  upon  among  the  Christians,  and  especially 
the  acknowledgment  of  that  form  of  words  exacted 
in  connection  with  the  rite  of  baptism.^  It  would 
seem  that  while  men  were  anxious  to  secure  what 
they  deemed  to  be  the  fundamental  faith  in  Jesus 
Christ  the  Saviour,  yet,  in  the  sense  of  any  more 
elaborated  theory  of  the  facts  here  presented,  we 
may  say  that  there  was  as  yet  no  current  theology. 
Or,  if  you  choose,  we  may  say  that  there  were 
many  theologies  current,  just  as  we  have  seen  that 
in  this  time  there  were  many  gospels  current  be- 
sides the  four  later  canonized,  and  more  bishops 
than  one  even  in  the  local  community,  and  no  theory 
concerning  the  original  authority  of  the  bishop 
such  as  was  later  proclaimed.  The  speculations 
of  authors  closely  related  the  one  to  the  other 
differ  among  themselves  in  startling  fashion,  both 
in  point  of  departure  and  in  their  implications. 
Terrible  or  comforting  pictures  of  the  future,  which 
were  mere  products  of  fantasy,  were  put  forth  side 
by  side  with  calm  and  simple  reflection  upon  the 
ethical  teaching  of  Jesus,  or,  again,  with  attempts 
to  adjust  that  teaching  to  one  and  another  aspect 
of  the  prevailing  philosophy. 

We  may  take  the  Apologists  for  examples.  They 
were  converted  for  the  most  part  in  their  maturity. 
They  represented  widely  different  horizons  of  cul- 
tivation, and  they  proceeded  to  adjust,  practically 

1  Caspari,  QtulUn  zur  Geschichte  des  Taufsymbols,  iii.  3  ff. 


CANONIZATION  AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      28 1 

each  man  as  seemed  good  in  his  own  eyes,  his 
new-found  Christianity  to  his  own  previous  ideas  of 
whatever  sort,  or  to  the  presumable  ideas  of  those 
for  whom  he  wrote.  The  most  naTve  are  those 
who,  like  Tatian,  operate  with  a  philosophy  while 
meantime  they  abuse  it  roundly  as  something 
which  for  them,  in  the  light  of  Christ,  has  been 
done  away.  But  even  to  such  men  it  seemed 
eminently  desirable,  for  the  sake  of  others,  to 
present  the  Gospel  in  such  a  manner  as  to  show 
its  points  of  contact  with  all  the  learning  which 
those  for  whom  they  wrote  possessed.  That  by 
this  process  some  adventurous  combinations  saw 
the  light  may  be  surmised.  It  would  seem  that 
the  Apologists  argued  that  if  men  were  but  at 
one  in  their  behef  in  the  revelation  of  God,  and 
in  Jesus  Christ  who  brought  us  salvation,  and  in 
the  desire  to  follow  in  his  steps,  there  was  the 
widest  freedom  in  reference  to  other,  and,  as 
they  fondly  supposed,  deeper  apprehensions  of 
the  Gospel.  We  should  put  the  matter  differently. 
We  should  say  that  the  men  were  at  one  in  the 
deep  things  of  religion,  and  differed  only  in  the  su- 
perficial and  unnecessary  ones,  such  as  the  efforts 
to  define  the  relation  of  these  simple  religious 
truths  to  theories  then  current  concerning  the  ori- 
gin of  the  universe,  and  other  similar  endeavors. 
But  of  course  this  was  not  the  way  in  which 
the  Apologists  looked  at  the  matter.  They  would 
have  said  that  it  was  comparatively  easy  for  men 
to  be  at  one  in  matters  of  such  fundamental  reli- 


282      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

gious  import  as  those  above  named.  What  they 
sought  to  do  was  to  deepen  and  widen  Christian- 
ity, each  one  in  his  own  way,  and  in  the  direc- 
tion of  those  remoter  aspects  of  speculation  or  of 
practice  which  particularly  interested  him.  And 
we  must  not  forget  that  many  of  these  individual 
views  were  attributed  to  the  direct  inspiration 
of  the  Holy  Spirit.  They  were  therefore  beyond 
criticism  of  other  Christian  men,  save,  of  course, 
in  so  far  as  their  consequences  might  be  obviously 
immoral. 

The  astonishing  divergence  of  incipient  theolog- 
ical forms  which  stood  side  by  side  in  the  second 
generation  of  the  second  century  may  be  illus- 
trated at  the  very  point  which  is  for  us  of  cen- 
tral importance,  that,  namely,  of  the  person  of 
Christ.  The  unanimity  of  the  Christians  of  this 
period  does  not  go  beyond  the  hearty  agreement 
upon  the  scriptural  phrases.  The  senses  in  which 
these  phrases  are  used,  the  interpretations  which 
are  put  upon  them,  differ  widely.  Sometimes 
divergent  interpretations  lie  side  by  side  in  the 
words  of  the  same  author,  as  if  the  author  did  not 
feel  the  significance  of  that  divergence.  Or,  rather, 
it  is  sometimes  as  if  the  author  thought  that  the 
greater  the  number  of  divergent  interpretations 
which  he  offered  the  profounder  and  more  sug- 
gestive thinker  he  was,  and  the  more  likely  was 
he  successfully  to  appeal  to  others  who  thought 
in  many  different  ways.  We  may  allow  that  this 
last  supposition  was  probably  true.     But  the  state 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       283 

of  things  in  which  men  deemed  themselves  to  be 
not  worse,  but  better  Christians  because  they  thus 
represented  at  different  times,  or  even  at  one  and 
the  same  time,  various  incompatible  theologies,  is, 
to  say  the  least,  an  interesting  one.  It  is  in  strong 
contrast  with  the  state  of  things  which  presently 
prevailed.  These  interpretations  could  not  all 
survive.  Not  all  of  them  were  possible  of  com- 
bination with  the  vital  Christian  elements.  But 
this,  at  all  events,  is  obvious ;  what  was  then 
deemed  essential  for  Christians  was  the  religious 
content  of  the  phrases  concerning  Christ.  This 
was  the  divine  truth  to  which  they  were  bound. 
What  was  left  free  to  men  was  the  imaginative 
and  poetical  interpretation  or,  again,  the  specula- 
tive construction  which  was  to  be  put  upon  those 
phrases.  With  all  this  divergence  of  interpre- 
tation in  the  creative  period  of  doctrine,  the  per- 
manence of  these  deep  religious  phrases  was  the 
healing  and  uniting  element.  But  the  perma- 
nence of  these  deep  rehgious  phrases  was  also,  if 
we  may  so  say,  the  misleading  element.  For  so 
soon  as  it  became  axiomatic  to  a  given  age  that  its 
own  interpretation  was  the  only  true  and  right 
one,  the  fact  that  the  phrases  had  been  immemo- 
rial and  unchanged  made  it  natural  for  the  men 
to  think  that  their  own  interpretation  had  been 
immemorial  and  unchanged  as  well.  Parallel  is 
the  fact  which  one  discovers  in  reading  not  a  few 
of  the  Fathers  after  Cyprian,  and  we  might  add, 
in  reading  some  ecclesiastical  writers  almost  down 


284      CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

to  our  time,  that  because  the  word  "bishop"  occurs 
so  often  in  Paul,  therefore  the  whole  aspect  of 
the  bishopric  must  have  been  the  same  to  Paul 
which  in  these  later  times  it  wore. 

The  Christian  communities  were,  indeed,  asso- 
ciations for  the  practice  of  the  holy  life  upon  the 
basis  of  faith  in  God  and  Jesus  Christ.^  At  the 
same  time,  the  conviction  was  present  from  the  be- 
ginning that  this  life  in  Christ  was  the  key  to  all 
knowledge.  And  though  the  Hellenic  spirit  in  its 
strong  bias  toward  intellectualism  gave  to  this 
conviction  a  perverse  bent,  yet  fundamentally 
the  conviction  is  entirely  true.  Nothing  could 
have  been  farther  from  the  clear  spirit  of  Jesus 
than  to  suppose  that  the  true  life  of  man  does  not 
include  also  his  mental  life,  or  that  the  fullest  life 
of  man  in  God  can  be  lived  without  the  exalta- 
tion of  the  mental  life  as  well.  But  when  once 
men  of  cultivation  began  to  be  found  within  the 
Christian  body,  and  to  desire  to  explain  Christian- 
ity for  the  benefit  of  the  cultivated  world  outside, 
when  once  the  intellectual  interest  was  set  free, 
and  the  fusion  of  the  new  rehgious  life  with  the 
achievements  of  the  Hellenic  spirit  in  all  depart- 
ments was  begun,  who  was  to  say  how  far  this 
process  might  go  ?  Who  was  to  say  which  of 
all  the  various  theories  which  were  so  earnestly 
sought  for,  and  so  confidently  put  forth  as  the 
deeper  meaning  of  Christianity,  would  be  found 
really  consistent  with  the  genius  of  Christianity, 

1  Harnack,  Dogmengeschichte,  i.  p.  158. 


CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      285 

and  which  of  them  would  be  found  destructive  of 
all  that  was  characteristic  in  Christianity  ?  Who 
was  to  say  which  of  these  combinations  would  be 
found  capable  of  transfiguration  through  the  pure 
religious  spirit  which  had  been  in  Jesus,  and  which 
of  them,  if  left  in  fusion  with  Christianity,  would 
issue  in  the  elimination  of  the  religious  element 
altogether  ?  Which  of  the  interpretations  then 
current  concerning,  for  example,  the  person  of 
Christ,  would  answer  to  the  needs  of  sinful  men 
and  furnish  them  with  the  spiritual  power  for  the 
imitation  of  the  life  of  Christ,  and  which  of  them 
would  empty  the  Gospel  of  its  spiritual  and  ethical 
significance  altogether  ? 

The  name  Gnostic  has  been  applied  with  some 
confusion  to  a  great  number  of  schools  and  under- 
takings of  all  sorts,  which  were  but  loosely  related 
the  one  to  the  other.  There  were  sects  Hke  the 
Encratites  who  laid  all  the  weight  upon  a  stringent 
dualistic  theory  of  the  universe,  and  made  Jesus 
the  pattern  of  the  ascetic  life.  There  were,  further- 
more, whole  communities  who  for  centuries  drew 
their  knowledge  of  Jesus  from  books  which  made 
him  nothing  more  than  a  heavenly  spirit,  who  ap- 
peared to  walk  among  men,  but  whose  body  and 
outward  contacts  and  alleged  deeds  had  no  reality 
whatever.  There  were  philosophers  who  adored 
the  bust  of  their  own  teacher,  Epiphanes,  and  had 
a  garland  for  Jesus,  just  as  they  had  also  for  Plato 
and  Pythagoras.  And,  finally,  there  were  swindlers 
like    Alexander   of    Abonoteichos,    fortune-tellers, 


286      CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY   OF   DOCTRINE 

counterfeiters,  jugglers,  who,  under  the  guise  of 
being  Christian  prophets,  were  given  to  pompous 
speech  and  conducted  superstitious  ceremonies,  but 
whose  real  aim  was  to  lead  captive  silly  women  and 
to  cheat  unwary  men.  There  were  all  these,  be- 
sides men  Hke  Basilides  and  Valentinus,  whose 
great  systems  have  to  be  taken  seriously.  And 
again,  there  were  men  hke  Marcion,  who,  though 
hardly  in  any  true  sense  a  Gnostic,  bore  relation 
to  the  movement  nevertheless.  We  may  be  con- 
tent to  let  the  word  stand  if  what  is  meant  by 
Gnosticism  is  the  general  phenomenon  presented 
when,  for  the  first  time,  influences  of  the  world 
streamed  in  upon  the  little  Christian  body  and  pos- 
sessed themselves  of  certain  portions  of  it.  In- 
structive remains  the  fact  that  it  was  in  gnostic 
circles  that  the  first  dogmatic  and  philosophical 
treatises  touching  Christianity  were  brought  forth, 
the  first  critical  and  historical  investigations  set  on 
foot,  the  first  commentaries  on  New  Testament 
books  produced,  the  first  sense  shown  for  an  au- 
thoritative Canon  of  the  Christian  literature  as 
such.  When  the  Christian  church  proceeded  to 
do  these  things  it  was,  to  some  extent,  in  answer 
to  that  which  the  Gnostics  had  already  done.  At 
least,  the  moment  at  which  and  the  form  in  which 
the  Christians  did  these  things  were  determined, 
to  some  extent,  by  that  which  Gnostics  had  al- 
ready done.  The  things  themselves  the  Chris- 
tians would  beyond  question  have  been  compelled 
to  do  in  any  case. 


CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      28/ 

Those  Christians  who,  in  the  middle  of  the  sec- 
ond century,  endeavored  at  one  swift  stroke  to  win 
the  whole  Hellenic  culture  for  Christianity,  or  to 
make  Christianity  but  a  phase  of  the  Hellenic 
culture,  were  condemned  by  the  very  institution 
which  gradually,  and  perhaps  without  being  aware 
of  it,  followed  for  some  distance  in  their  steps.^ 
There  are  elements  conspicuous  in  this  wide 
phenomenon  of  Gnosticism  which  are  not  Hel- 
lenic. There  are  traits,  and  those  some  of  the 
most  incongruous  and  bizarre,  which  are  obviously 
oriental  and  not  Greek  at  all.  Nevertheless,  the 
decisive  impulse  was  that  intellectual  one  which 
in  the  decay  of  Greek  civilization  had  been  car- 
ried through  the  world,  and  grafted,  in  some  way, 
upon  the  life  of  almost  every  nation.  That  the 
Hellenic  spirit  in  Gnosticism  sought  thus  to  pos- 
sess itself  of  the  Christian  community  is  clear 
proof  of  the  great  impression  which  Christianity 
had  made  upon  the  world.  The  Hellenic  world 
was  famiHar  with  doctrines  which  had  never  been 
able  to  produce  a  life  which  in  appreciable  degree 
accorded  with  those  doctrines.  But  here  was  a 
noble  form  of  life  which  seemed  to  be  waiting  for 
a  doctrine  to  correspond  to  it.^  Here  was  just  the 
task  for  this  eager,  acute,  and  ofttimes  unstable 
Hellenic  genius  which  found  so  much  greater 
pleasure  in  thinking  cleverly  than  in  being  good. 
What  the  Christians  had  to  offer  to  an  age  in 
which  some  one  had  said  that  nothing  is  certain 

1  Harnack,  Dogmengeschichte,  i.  p.  162.  ^  Jhid,^  p.  170, 


288       CANONIZATION    AND   HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

save  that  nothing  is  certain,  was  the   confidence 
of  their  faith  in  God  and  man.     What  they  had  to 
offer  in  an  age  of  incredible  moral  corruption  was 
the  purity  of  their  moral  ideal  and  their  heroism 
in  the  pursuit  of  that  ideal.     What  Hellenism,  on 
the  other  hand,  had  to  offer  to  a  community  which, 
just  because  of  its  moral  greatness,  was  more  and 
more  drawing  to  itself  the  cultivated  and  reflective 
classes,  was  the  basis  of  reflection,  from  which  all 
cultivated  Hfe   since  Plato  had  proceeded.      One 
may  say  that  the  alliance  between  these  two,  be- 
tween  the   highest    intellectual   and   the   highest 
moral   impulse  which    the  human  race   has   ever 
received,  was  inevitable.     One  may  say  that  the 
first  stage  of  that  association  was  a  triumph  for 
Christianity.    It  brought  Hellenism  to  bow  before  a 
moraUty,  before  a  character  and  a  religious  enthu- 
siasm such  as  it  had  never  produced  or  even  in 
far-off  way  approached.     But,  on  the  other  hand, 
Christianity  did  not  escape  the  absorption  into  it- 
self of  certain  elements  of  Hellenism  that  were  not 
germane  to  its  true  end  and  spirit,  and  which  less 
or  more  have  prevailed  in  it  to  this  day. 

That  pure  moral  enthusiasm  which  was  the  gist 
of  Christianity,  in  its  sublime  endeavor  to  appro- 
priate to  itself  the  world  had  been  appropriated  by 
the  world  in  a  far  greater  degree  than  it  had  any 
idea  of.  It  had  aimed  to  penetrate  and  permeate 
the  world.  It  did  not  realize  how  far  it  had  been 
penetrated  by  the  world.  It  had  taken  up  its  glo- 
rious mission  to  change  the  world.     It   dreamed 


CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      289 

that  while  changing  the  world  it  had  itself  remained 
unchanged.  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  world  was 
changed  —  the  world  of  life,  the  world  of  feeling, 
and  the  world  of  thought.  But  Christianity  was 
changed,  as  well.  It  had  conquered  the  world,  but 
without  perceiving  that  it  illustrated  the  old  law 
that  the  conquered  give  laws  to  the  conqueror. 
It  had  fused  the  ancient  culture  with  the  flame 
of  its  inspiration.  It  did  not  know  how  much  the 
fused  elements  of  that  ancient  culture  now  colored 
its  far-shining  flame.  It  had  been  a  maker  of  his- 
tory. But  in  the  meantime  it  had  been  remade  by 
its  own  history.  It  confidently  carried  back  its 
Canon,  its  organization,  its  dogma,  its  ritual,  to 
Christ  and  the  Apostles.  It  did  not  realize  that 
those,  one  and  all,  were  born  out  of  its  fruitful  con- 
tact with  the  world  during  the  century  after  the 
Apostles.  It  deemed  them  the  armor  of  its  de- 
fence against  the  world.  It  Httle  dreamed  that  they 
were  themselves  the  monuments  of  the  fact  that 
it  had  not  altogether  defended  itself  against  the 
world.  The  dogma  was  the  Hellenization  of 
Christian  thought,  as  the  monarchical  episcopate 
was  the  Romanization  of  its  life,  and  the  Canon 
the  externalization  of  its  spirit  and  enthusiasm. 

This  matter  has  been  put  in  such  a  way  as  to 
seem  to  give  ground  for  deep  pessimism.  It  has 
been  so  stated  that  we  might  infer  that  the  progress 
of  Christianity  had  been  but  a  declension,  and  its 
history  that  of  one  long  defection  from  a  pure 
ideal.     Defection    there   has   been.     Not   all    the 


290      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

things  which  followed  upon  the  adjustment  of 
Christianity  to  the  life  of  the  world  were  necessary 
to  the  doing  of  the  true  work  of  Christianity  in  the 
world.  But  the  adjustment  was  necessary.  Not 
all  these  things  were  even  possible  of  combina- 
tion with  the  pure  spirit  of  Christianity.  And  not 
all  those  which  were  impossible  of  combination 
with  that  spirit  have  been  easily  removed.  But 
we  must  not  argue  as  if  Christianity  had  ever  ex- 
isted in  the  world  as  pure  spirit,  unless,  indeed, 
we  should  say  that  it  thus  existed  in  the  personal 
life  of  its  Founder.  But  even  that  personal  life 
was  lived  in  the  most  definite  and  constant  adjust- 
ment to  the  conditions  given  in  the  time  and  place 
in  which  that  life  was  lived.  Incarnation  is  limita- 
tion. The  spirit  did  its  work  through  the  flesh 
even  in  Jesus.  We  must  not  argue  as  if  the  spirit 
of  Christianity  could  ever  have  done  its  work  in 
the  world  save  as  it  became  a  part  of  the  real  life 
of  the  world,  took  up  elements  of  the  world  into 
itself,  and  was  itself  taken  up  into  the  elements 
of  the  world.  It  won  the  Hellenic  world  by  its 
degree  of  Hellenization.  It  did  w^ork  in  the 
Roman  world  by  its  degree  of  Romanization. 
We  must  not  argue  that  the  spirit  of  Christianity 
ever  will  do  any  work  save  in  fearless  combination, 
thorough  fusion,  actual  ingrafting  of  its  life  into 
the  life  of  the  new  time  and  of  the  life  of  that  time 
into  Christianity.  Ideals  alone  do  no  work.  But 
religions  which  do  no  work  are  farthest  from  being 
ideal.     What  men  call  the  descent  from  the  dream 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      29 1 

is  the  ascent  to  service.  The  flesh  of  an  incarna- 
tion is  in  its  own  way  only  less  glorious  than  the 
spirit.  We  seek  to  recur  to  the  pure  ideal,  not 
in  order  that  we  may  disparage  the  services  which 
historically  have  been  rendered  by  forms  of  that 
ideal  which  were  not  wholly  pure.  We  seek  to 
recur  to  the  pure  ideal,  not  to  decry  the  strangely 
commingled  forms  under  which  in  the  great  human 
Hfe  the  divine  spirit  has  seen  fit  to  work.  We  are 
what  we  are  and  our  world  is  what  it  is,  exactly 
because  of  the  services  thus  rendered.  But  we 
seek  to  recur  to  the  pure  ideal  because  it  has 
always  been  the  weakness  of  humanity  to  con- 
found the  passing  with  the  permanent,  the  human 
with  the  divine,  the  essential  with  that  which  is 
adventitious.  We  seek  in  all  reverence  to  strip  off 
that  which  is  adventitious  only  in  order  that  we 
may  hold  the  more  firmly  to  that  which  is  essential, 
as  we  face  the  work  which  Christianity  is  yet  to 
do,  and  prepare  the  forms  of  ethical  and  intellec- 
tual, of  personal  and  social  life,  into  which  it  is  yet 
to  enter. 

The  main  points  of  the  gnostic  contention  have 
been  touched  upon  as,  from  time  to  time,  we  have 
had  occasion  to  allude  to  the  influence  of  these 
sects.  We  need  not  repeat  what  has  been  already 
said.  To  the  Gnostics  Christianity  is,  indeed,  the 
one  true  and  absolute  religion.  It  includes  a 
system  of  doctrine  revealed  by  Christ  himself. 
But  Christ  has  revealed  this  not  in  the  documents 
which  we  know,  and  not  through  his  spirit  in  the 


292       CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

hearts  of  all  men,  but  in  a  secret  tradition  of  further 
mysterious  truths  handed  down  as  esoteric  wisdom 
in  the  sects.  The  Creator  of  the  world  is  not  the 
God  of  our  redemption.  Evil  is  inherent  in  matter 
and  inseparable  from  every  contact  with  it.  There 
are  many  powers  and  heavenly  persons  in  whom 
the  absolute  God  has  made  Himself  known.  Jesus 
is  but  the  last  and  greatest  of  these  heavenly 
powers.  His  earthly  life  was  a  mere  phantasm, 
and  all  that  is  related  as  his  earthly  career  is 
mythology  for  the  uneducated  man. 

In  strict  sense  Marcion  was  not  a  Gnostic.^  He 
was  led  not  by  a  speculative  interest,  but  by  a 
deep  moral  one.  He  never  acknowledged  the 
difference  between  the  secret  and  the  open  type 
of  tradition.  He  desired  to  reform  the  church  in 
his  own  sense,  and  only  when  he  failed  set  up 
a  school  for  himself.  The  utter  denial  of  the 
God  of  wrath  of  whom  the  Old  Testament  spoke, 
Paulinism  in  all  its  bitterness  against  things  Jewish 
and  none  of  that  affection  for  Judaism  which  yet 
animated  Paul,  Paulinism  with  none  of  the  breadth 
and  mysticism  of  Paul,  stringent  asceticism,  the 
repudiation  of  all  rites  and  ceremonies  — these  were 
some  of  the  points  of  Marcion's  teaching.  Jesus 
was  simply  the  apparition  of  the  good  God  who 
could  never  have  had  anything  to   do  with    that 

1  Concerning  Marcion,  see  Harnack,  pp.  197  ff.,  Gustav  Kruger, 
art.  "  Marcion,"  in  Herzog,  R.  E.,  3  Aufl.,  Bd,  xii.,  1903,  pp.  267-277, 
and  Hilgenfeld,  Ketzergeschiohte  des  Urchristenthums,  pp.  316  f.  and 
522  f. 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY   OF   DOCTRINE      293 

which  belongs  to  the  senses.  The  birth  of  Jesus 
—  not  merely  the  Virgin  birth,  but  any  birth  what- 
ever—  was  impossible.  His  human  development 
was  excluded.  His  bodily  life  on  the  earth  was 
a  mere  semblance.  Marcion's  scripture  shrinks, 
as  we  have  seen,  to  the  compass  of  a  few 
letters  of  Paul,  and  the  Gospel  of  Luke,  much 
altered  to  suit  his  own  purposes.  Marcion  was  a 
zealot  and  had  talent  for  leadership.  But  not  in 
the  eyes  of  the  sturdiest  Puritan  could  the  growing 
organization  and  power  of  the  catholic  church  have 
found  less  favor  than  did  these  in  the  eyes  of 
Marcion.  The  transformation  of  the  teaching 
function,  as  it  had  been  in  the  earliest  communi- 
ties, into  the  priestly  office  was  offensive  to  him  in 
high  degree.  To  his  strong  individualism  the 
tendency  to  centralization  and  authority,  which 
possessed  the  church  in  his  day,  was  a  thing  to  be 
resisted.  In  the  sense  in  which  men  were  begin- 
ning to  make  earnest  with  that  word,  Marcion  could 
never  have  said,  "I  believe  in  the  holy  catholic 
church."  From  about  the  year  i6o  there  seem  to 
have  been  Marcionite  communities,  vigorously  dis- 
senting from  the  belief  and  practice  of  the  main 
body  of  the  Christian  adherents,  and  refusing  to 
yield  to  the  growing  organization  of  the  catholic 
church.  But  they  were  of  strict  moral  life,  they 
had  their  own  confessors  and  martyrs  side  by  side 
with  those  of  the  regular  Christians. 

Now  it  was  in  antithesis  to  this  general  gnostic 
movement,  and  more  particularly  to  Marcionitism, 


294      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

that  the  first  form  of  authoritative  statement  of 
Christian  doctrine  took  its  shape.  It  is  exactly  in 
Rome,  in  the  field  of  Marcion's  operations,  that  the 
first  form  of  confession  is  discovered  which  seems 
to  have  been  used  in  the  preparation  of  those  to 
be  admitted  to  the  membership  of  the  church.  It 
marks  a  tendency  in  such  instruction  as  different 
as  possible  from  that  which  is  still  visible  in  the 
Didache  and  in  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  although 
the  former  of  these  books  is  put  forth  explicitly  as 
containing  instruction  in  the  spirit  and  on  the 
authority  of  the  Apostles,  and  although  the  latter 
was  also  written  in  Rome  and  not  far  from  the 
time  of  which  we  speak.  The  Roman  symbol 
represents  the  principle  of  the  use  in  such  in- 
struction of  a  brief  compendium  or  statement  of 
the  main  points  of  the  faith.  Compendia  of  a 
sort,  forms  of  confession,  seem  to  have  found  place 
even  in  some  of  the  New  Testament  Epistles.^  But 
until  the  time  of  which  we  are  speaking  their  use 
was  liturgical.  The  repetition  of  them  was  an  act 
of  worship.  Now,  however,  we  have  reached  the 
point  where,  in  connection  with  the  rite  of  baptism, 
an  exact  form  of  words  is  insisted  upon  in  con- 
fession, as  the  evidence  of  good  faith  upon  the 
part  of  the  candidate,  and  as  a  barrier  against  the 
intrusion  into  the  Christian  body  of  those  holding 
tenets  of  the  gnostic  sects.  The  significance  of 
this    change   cannot   be    exaggerated.     From  the 

^  I  Corinthians  xv.  i  f.;   i  Timothy  iii.  i6;  and  see  note  with  ref- 
erences in  Harnack,  p.  113  ;    Eusebius,  H.  E.,  v.  28.  5. 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      295 

time  of  the  introduction  of  this  custom,  the 
solemn  profession  of  adherence  to  a  statement 
of  belief  becomes  the  mark  of  those  who  belong  to 
the  catholic  church,  and  the  very  point  of  their 
distinction  from  those  who  do  not.  The  confes- 
sion of  faith  in  God  the  Creator,  and  in  Jesus  the 
Son  of  God,  and  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  in  the  simple 
form  in  which  we  have  seen  it  everywhere  current, 
was  amplified  into  a  resume  of  certain  facts  of 
the  life  of  Jesus,  and  was  made  to  include  the 
mention  of  certain  of  the  gifts  of  God  unto  sal- 
vation which  are  confirmed  to  us  through  Jesus. 
Such  gifts  are  the  forgiveness  of  sins,  the  res- 
urrection of  the  body,  and  the  Hfe  everlasting. 
And  this  confession  becomes  the  bond  of  union 
among  those  within  the  fold  of  the  church,  and 
as  well  the  summary  of  the  points  of  distinction 
between  these  Christians  and  those  separated  from 
the  fold. 

Of  this  Roman  Baptismal  Symbol  the  substance 
is  preserved  for  us  by  both  Irenaeus  and  Tertullian.^ 
It  would  seem  to  have  taken  shape  not  far  from 
the  year  160.2  j^-  jg  possible  that  it  was  phrased 
under  Anicetus,  who  was  bishop  of  Rome  from  the 
year  157  to  168.^     The  form  in  which  we  know  the 

1  Irenaeus,  Adv,  Hcer.,  i.  lo.  i.  2;  9.  1-5;  22.  i;  ii.  9-  i; 
28.  I  ;   Tertullian,  De  Prescript.  HcEr.,  13,  14,  and  especially  21. 

2  Caspari,  Qtiellen,  iii.  pp.  3  ff.,  Gebhardt,  Harnack,  u.  Zahn, 
Pair.  Apost.  0pp. ,  i.  2.  pp.  1 15-142;  Kattenbusch,  Das  Apost. 
Symbol,  1 895-1 900;  McGiffert,  The  Apostles'  Creed,  New  York,  1902. 

3  Harnack,  Caspari,  Kattenbusch,  and  McGiffert  grant  a  some- 
what wider  range. 


296      CANONIZATION    AND   HISTORY   OF   DOCTRINE 

Roman  baptismal  symbol  is  the  Apostles'  Creed, 
although  the  wording  of  this  latter  document  as  we 
now  have  it,  and  as  well  that  particular  title  for 
it,  are,  of  course,  of  considerably  later  date.  And 
those  things  which  we  have  just  said  concerning 
the  origin  of  the  Roman  symbol,  the  determination 
of  the  precise  period  of  its  origin,  the  recognition 
of  the  tendency  which  it  represents,  together  with 
the  agreement,  almost  verbal,  of  the  Apostles' 
Creed  with  this  Roman  baptismal  symbol,  throw 
floods  of  light  for  us  upon  the  Apostles'  Creed. 
No  one  conversant  with  the  history  of  early  Chris- 
tianity can  look  closely  at  the  Apostles'  Creed 
without  a  sense  of  wonder,  both  at  the  things  which 
it  chooses  out  for  enumeration  and  as  well  at  the 
things  which  were  certainly  part  of  the  faith  of  the 
early  Christians  which  the  creed  omits  to  state. 
Now  both  the  things  which  the  creed  says,  with  the 
precise  turn  given  in  the  saying  them,  and  as  well 
the  things  which  the  Apostles'  Creed  does  not  say, 
become  at  once  intelligible  if  one  admits  that  the 
statement  was  shaped  by  the  exigencies  of  the 
church  at  the  moment  when  the  Roman  baptismal 
symbol  was  put  forth,  and,  more  specifically,  that 
it  was  guided,  in  some  degree  at  least,  by  the  an- 
tithesis to  Marcion  and  the  Marcionites  which  we 
have  shown. 

Irenaeus  is  probably  right  in  affirming  that  the 
Roman  symbol,  which  to  all  intents  and  purposes 
is  in  our  hands  as  the  Apostles'  Creed,  represents 
a  part,  though   certainly  not  the  whole,   of  what 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE      29/ 

was  generally  believed  in  the  apostolic  churches 
in  Irenasus'  time.^  Irenaeus,  of  course,  does  not 
call  the  Roman  symbol  by  the  name  of  the  Apos- 
tles' Creed.  But  the  sense  of  the  formula  is  carried 
back  in  full  confidence  to  the  authority  of  the 
Apostles.  The  matter  lies  in  Irenaeus'  mind  in  the 
same  manner  precisely  in  which  we  have  observed 
that  the  New  Testament  Canon  and  the  church 
organization,  and  the  relations  of  these  to  the  au- 
thority of  the  Apostles,  presented  themselves  to  his 
thought.  And  of  course  no  long  time  elapsed  until, 
from  this  general  attribution  of  the  sense  of  the 
Roman  symbol  to  the  Apostles,  even  the  wording 
of  the  creed  was  ascribed  to  the  Apostles  as  well. 
A  writing  ascribed  to  Ambrose,  and  which  belongs 
late  in  the  fourth  or  early  in  the  fifth  century, 
has  a  picturesque  legend  in  which  the  Creed  is 
divided  into  twelve  parts  and  one  of  these  parts 
is  assigned  to  each  of  the  Apostles  by  name.  But 
quite  apart  from  reliance  on  such  a  legend  as  this, 
for  the  great  body  of  Christians,  and  until  com- 
paratively recent  years,  the  perspective  of  the 
Apostles'  Creed  has  been  lost. 

Precisely  thus,  however,  through  the  statement, 
which  in  a  way  is  true,  that  the  Apostles  ordained 
bishops,  the  perspective  and  the  sense  of  the  evolu- 
tion of  the  bishopric  was  lost.  There  is  an  obvious 
sense  in  which  the  Apostles'  Creed  is  apostolic,  as 
there  is  a  sense  in  which  no  one  would  dispute 
that  the   New   Testament   is   apostolic.     But  the 

1  Irenaeus,  Adv.  Hcer.,  i.  9.  4. 


298      CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

assumption  that  the  Apostles  were  the  actual  au- 
thors of  the  creed,  an  assumption  which  in  a  vague 
way  many  generations  shared,  has  had  the  effect 
of  removing  the  creed  from  the  historical  associ- 
ations through  which  alone  it  can  be  understood.^ 

This  idea  of  the  responsibility  of  the  Apostles 
for  the  faith  commonly  held  in  the  apostolic 
churches,  as  it  is  constantly  put  forth  by  the 
Fathers,  rests  not  so  much  upon  concrete  remi- 
niscences of  service  which  the  Twelve  had  ren- 
dered in  evangelization,  and,  more  particularly, 
in  the  establishment  of  the  Gentile  churches.  It 
is  well  known  that,  apart  from  the  cases  of  Peter 
and  John,  there  is  very  little  concrete  tradition 
concerning  the  activity  of  the  Twelve  in  the 
spreading  of  the  Gospel.  And  even  in  the  cases 
of  Peter  and  John  the  certain  facts  are  very  few. 
But  the  narrative  of  the  Book  of  the  Acts,  and, 
still  more,  of  course,  the  Epistles  of  Paul,  make 
the  impression  that  in  large  part  that  work  among 
the  Gentiles  was  done  by  Paul  and  by  men  under 
PauHne  influence.  The  relations  of  the  Twelve 
to  Paul  and  the  Gentile  mission  were  not  a  little 
strained.  But  this  fact  the  tradition  of  the  end 
of  the  second  century  has  forgotten.  The  faith 
current  in  the  Gentile  world  is  not  carried  back  to 
Paul  alone.  In  fact,  in  that  faith  as  by  this  time  it 
began  to  be  formulated  in  those  apostoHc  churches, 
much  that  is  very  different  from  Paulinism  is  found. 
The  tradition,  as  it  is  in  the  second  century,  has 

1  Harnack,  p.  263. 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       299 

its  own  ideal  construction  of  the  whole  matter.^ 
It  goes  back  and  takes  hold  of  the  fact  that  the 
testimony  concerning  Jesus  was,  by  the  Master 
himself,  committed  to  this  sacred  number  of  the 
twelve  eye-witnesses  who  were  to  go  into  all  the 
world  and  preach  the  Gospel  to  every  creature. 
The  tradition  builds  upon  the  fact  that  the  Apos- 
tles were  thus  divinely  commissioned  to  go  and 
teach,  rather  than  upon  definite  knowledge  as  to 
whither  they  did  go  or  what  they  taught.  The 
Twelve  are  thought  of  as  a  sort  of  sacred  college, 
responsible  for  the  work  of  evangelization  and 
for  the  substance  of  preaching.  The  unanimity  of 
this  college  of  Apostles  within  itself  is  given  as  the 
very  reason  why  dissent  from  the  faith  which  the 
Apostles  have  everywhere  transmitted  is  not  to 
be  allowed.  In  truth,  in  the  properly  organized 
apostolic  churches  there  is  no  such  dissent.  The 
deposit  of  faith  is  thus  held  to  have  been  given 
by  Christ  himself  into  the  hands  of  the  Apostles, 
and  by  these  to  Apostles'  pupils.  These  in  turn 
handed  it  on  to  their  disciples.  And  this  un- 
broken chain  of  witnesses  guarantees  that  from 
the  beginning  to  the  present  moment  nothing 
essential  had  been  changed. 

No  one  can  doubt  that  to  this  formulation  of 
some  part  of  the  common  faith,  as  it  was  then 
current  in  important  churches,  and  to  the  placing 
of  this  formula  under  the  authority  of  the  Apostles 
themselves,  is  due,  in  no  small  degree,  the  preser- 

^  First  Clement,  xlii  ;  Barnabas,  v.  9 ;   Hermas,  Sim.,  ix.  16,  and 

see  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Alex.  Strom,,  vi.  6.  48. 


300      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

vation  of  the  early  Christian  doctrinal  tradition. 
There  is  as  little  doubt  of  this  as  of  the  parallel 
fact  that  to  the  rise  of  the  Canon  we  owe  the 
careful  preservation  and  the  enhanced  influence 
of  the  body  of  the  apostolic  literature.  Some  part 
of  the  original  doctrinal  tradition  is  thus  rescued 
in  documentary  form.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  we 
must  say  that  Christianity  was  thus  bound  fast  to 
forms  which  have  a  definite  historical  explanation, 
and  which  can  be  rightly  understood  only  in  the 
light  of  that  explanation.  The  power  of  expansion 
of  Christianity  was  hemmed.  By  the  use  made 
of  mere  assent  to  propositions,  the  tendency  to 
emphasis  upon  the  intellectual  elements  of  the 
Christian  faith  was  unfortunately  confirmed. 

Quite  apart  from  the  specific  struggle  with 
Gnosticism,  the  exigencies  of  Christian  missions 
would  themselves  account  for  the  framing  of  short 
formulae  touching  the  most  significant  points  of 
the  Christian  beUef .  These  forms  were  then,  upon 
solemn  occasions,  repeated ;  and  especially,  candi- 
dates for  baptism  uttered  them  as  the  confession 
of  their  faith.  They  do  not  seem  to  have  been 
made  up,  to  any  extent,  of  the  words  of  Jesus,  or 
even  of  directions  for  the  moral  life.  And  yet 
instruction  in  both  of  these  things  unquestionably 
went  hand  in  hand  with  the  committing  of  the  sym- 
bol to  memory.  A  witness  to  such  simple  moral 
instruction  is  the  Didach^.  But  it  was  not  the 
points  of  the  Christian  morality  which  appeared  to 
the  Greeks  foolishness.     These  were  not  a  stum- 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE        3OI 

bling-block  to  the  Jews.  These  were  not  the 
points  upon  which,  in  any  large  way,  differences 
of  opinion  arose  among  the  Christians  them- 
selves. But  certain  parts  of  the  tradition  con- 
cerning the  revelation  of  God  in  Jesus,  certain 
points  concerning  Jesus'  birth,  his  earthly  life, 
his  resurrection,  his  ascension  —  these  were  the 
points  upon  which  the  scorn  of  the  pagans  was 
directed,  which  the  Jews  repudiated,  and  which 
many  of  the  Christians  themselves,  like  Marcion, 
interpreted  away.  It  is  no  wonder  that  to  the 
men  of  that  time  the  very  existence  of  the  Chris- 
tian community  seemed  to  depend  upon  the  find- 
ing of  some  authoritative  statement  of  the  things 
which  were  in  dispute.  And  the  emphasis  upon 
just  such  points  would  surely  grow  as  the  warmth, 
the  originality  and  enthusiasm,  the  spiritual  con- 
sciousness of  the  life  which  had  been  touched  by 
the  moral  influence  of  Jesus,  waned.  Time  had 
been  when  the  majority  of  Christians  knew  them- 
selves to  be  such  because,  as  they  would  have  said, 
they  possessed  the  Spirit,  because  they  were  moved 
to  joy  and  sacrifice,  to  the  life  of  love  and  of  obedi- 
ence, as  they  saw  these  illustrated  in  Jesus  and  in 
those  who  professed  faith  in  him.  But  now  from 
every  quarter,  and  even  in  the  very  name  of  Christ 
himself,  were  being  put  forth  the  most  various 
opinions  concerning  matters  of  which  those  simpler 
Christians  of  the  earlier  time  had  never  thought. 
Upon  these,  which  were  often  purely  matters  of 
opinion,  the  Christian  body  itself  threatened  to  be 


302       CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

rent  in  twain,  and  again,  certain  parts  of  it,  to  be 
dissolved  in  the  world,  nothing  characteristically 
Christian  being  left.  The  fixing  of  a  tradition 
concerning  certain  facts,  and  an  acknowledged 
interpretation  of  those  facts,  seemed  to  be  a  prime 
necessity.  But  just  as  we  said  in  the  case  of  the 
New  Testament  Canon,  that,  quite  apart  from 
Gnostics  and  Montanists,  a  New  Testament  would 
surely  have  come  to  pass,  so  we  may  say  here  that, 
quite  apart  from  Marcionites,  we  may  be  certain 
that  a  baptismal  formula  and  confession  would 
have  taken  shape.  We  may  go  even  farther,  and 
say  that  when  such  a  confession  did  come  into  ex- 
istence it  was  certain  to  be  attributed  to  the  Apos- 
tles. The  men  of  this  time  were  far  enough  from 
the  Apostles  to  make  it  instinctive  with  them 
to  desire  to  fix  in  writing,  in  the  form  also  of  a 
rule  of  faith,  what  they  deemed  to  have  been  the 
Apostles'  teaching,  and  to  demand  acknowledgment 
of  that  rule  of  faith  from  all  those  who  sought 
admission  to  the  Christian  institution.  Quite  apart 
from  Marcionites,  a  creed  called  that  of  the  Apos- 
tles would  certainly  have  taken  shape.  But  apart 
from  Marcionites  it  would  hardly  have  taken  just 
this  shape  which  we  see. 

The  baptismal  formula  is  only  partially  repre- 
sentative of  the  faith  held  by  the  men  among 
whom  it  arose.  The  doctrinal  antitheses  of  that 
time  determined  less  or  more  the  choice  of  the 
points  which  were  to  be  enumerated.  A  distorted 
picture  is  given  by  a  statement  of  those  things  con- 


CANONIZATION   AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       303 

cerning  which  men  differ,  if  meantime  the  vast 
mass  of  those  things  on  which  all  are  agreed, 
the  first  principles  of  the  moral  life,  are  not  so 
much  as  mentioned.  A  deep  misfortune  lies  in 
the  emphasis  which  is  thus  put  upon  certain  merely 
intellectual  elements  of  the  faith,  and  withdrawn 
from  the  ethical  and  social  elements  which  not  only 
were  of  more  consequence,  but  which  the  clearer 
spirits  of  that  time  would  have  felt  to  be  of  more 
consequence.  But  they  were  not  the  points  in  dis- 
pute. It  has  been  a  fatality  that  this  small  portion, 
as  assuredly  it  is,  even  of  the  faith  then  current, 
should  have  been  given  prominence  as  if  it  were 
the  whole,  or  even  as  if  it  were  the  most  signifi- 
cant and  crucial  part  of  that  which  Christ  and  the 
Apostles  taught,  the  bond  of  union  of  those  who 
wished  to  follow  in  Christ's  steps.  The  document 
of  a  controversy  can  but  be  misleading  as  an  histori- 
cal statement  of  a  case.  The  difficulty  lies  in  the 
false  perspective  of  the  things  which  are  said,  even 
though  all  the  things  which  are  said  should  prove 
to  be  true.  The  mistake  arises  from  our  not 
reckoning  with  the  things  which  are  not  said. 

The  force  of  conviction  with  which  Irenaeus  puts 
forth  the  main  points  of  the  Roman  baptismal 
formula —  and  they  are,  as  we  have  said,  the  main 
points  of  our  Apostles'  Creed  —  as  those  which  had 
been  transmitted  from  the  Apostles'  time,  and  upon 
which  it  was  now  most  important  that  Christians 
should  agree,  is  epoch-making.  Even  more  defi- 
nitely is  this  the  point  of  view  of  Tertullian.     For 


304      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

him  it  is  beyond  all  dispute  that  the  Rule  of  Faith 
is  the  expression  of   that   to  which   all   apostolic 
churches  hold  and  have  always  held,  and  to  which 
all  Christians  must  hold.     In  the  sharpness  of  the 
contention  which  then  prevailed,  Tertullian  would 
have  had  Christians  hold  no  intercourse  with  those 
who  would  not  acknowledge  this  formula.     That 
the   confession    did    thus    gradually   become    the 
watchword  and  bond  of  the  Christian  brotherhood, 
there  can  be  no  doubt.     And  yet  one  learns  from 
Clement  of  Alexandria  and  from  Origen  how  long 
it  took,  especially  in  Egypt  and  the  East,  to  bring 
this  to  pass.     For  in  Clement's  time  in  Alexandria, 
in  all  his  service  as  the  head  of  the  catechetical 
school,  not  only  is  there  no  evidence  of  a  symbol 
parallel  with   the    Roman  baptismal  formula  and 
used  for  similar   purposes,  but  there  is   no  com- 
plex of  doctrinal  teaching  which,  after  the  manner 
of    Irenseus  and  Tertullian,  was  carried  back  di- 
rectly to  the  Apostles.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  was 
not  the  Roman  Symbol  which  became  the  bond  of 
unity  of  the  churches  of  the  East  one  with  another, 
and  of  those  churches  with  the  churches  of  the  West. 
That  function  was  reserved  for  the  Nicene  Creed, 
a  symbol  which  took  shape  five  generations  later 
than  the  Roman  Symbol,  which  is  much  further 
advanced   theologically,   which   was   of    itself    of 
eastern  origin,  and  which  had  behind  it  in  its  mis- 
sion as  an  ecumenical  creed  all  the  force  of  the 
Byzantine  Empire  and  the  impulse  of  the  conver- 
sion of  Constantine.    Indeed,  the  Nicene  Creed  has 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       305 

always  remained  the  creed  of  the  East.  Meantime 
the  Roman  Symbol,  having  been,  in  the  years  fol- 
lowing the  Council  of  Nicaea,  crowded  from  its 
position  of  honor  in  the  West  and  even  in  Rome 
itself,  returned  after  something  like  two  hundred 
years,  with  minor  changes  in  the  phrasing,  and  with 
its  direct  title  as  ''The  Apostles'  Creed,"  and  has 
remained  to  our  day,  in  the  Roman  church  and  in 
the  Protestant  bodies  which  went  out  from  that 
church  far  more  characteristically  the  creed  of  the 
West  than  the  Nicene  Creed  ever  became. 

In  this  movement  for  the  formulation  of  the 
faith  in  creeds,  of  which  movement  we  have  thus 
witnessed  the  first  stage,  the  tendency  to  exclusive 
emphasis  upon  assent  and  upon  the  intellectual 
aspects  of  Christianity  is  the  most  serious  thing. 
It  is  more  serious,  even,  than  that  partial  and 
fragmentary  character  of  the  creeds  which  we 
have  observed.  We  should  be  greatly  mistaken  if 
we  supposed  that  the  movement  for  the  formulation 
of  faith  rested  when,  through  simple  historic  state- 
ments or  religious  utterance  as  in  the  Roman 
Symbol,  it  seemed  to  itself  to  have  made  good  its 
case  against  the  Gnostics  and  Marcion.  On  the 
contrary,  with  the  apologists  and  still  more  with 
the  earliest  Fathers,  it  is  the  instinct  to  carry 
the  war  into  Africa,  to  meet  the  Gnostic  on  his 
own  ground,  and  against  the  speculations  of  Mar- 
cion and  of  others  to  set  up  a  speculative  theol- 
ogy of  their  own,  which  was  to  be  the  approved 
churchly  interpretation  of   the  statements  of  fact 


306      CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

which  are  gathered  in  the  Rule  of  Faith  and 
which  appear  in  the  Apostles'  Creed.  The  apolo- 
getic as  it  began  to  take  shape,  even  before  the 
year  i6o,  was  the  beginning  of  a  process  which  a 
hundred  years  later,  in  the  theology  of  Origen, 
reached,  for  the  time,  its  limit  in  the  complete 
transformation  of  the  Gospel  into  a  system  of 
theology.  What  is  here  put  forth  by  Origen  as  the 
meaning  of  Christianity  is  really  only  the  religious 
philosophy  of  the  age  of  Origen,  certified  through 
divine  revelation,  and  in  Jesus  Christ  made  acces- 
sible to  every  man. 

The  difference  between  the  Fathers  and  the 
Apologists  lies  mainly  in  the  fact  that  the  latter  in 
the  teaching  concerning  Jesus  have  to  do  only  with 
the  Old  Testament  and  with  the  words  of  Jesus. 
They  have  to  do  with  a  New  Testament  narrative 
which  was  not  yet  fully  acknowledged  as  authori- 
tative by  the  church.  Origen  has  to  do  with  a 
literature  which  has  become  a  Canon,  and  with 
a  rule  of  faith  which  is  fast  becoming  a  sole  au- 
thoritative creed.  The  Canon  and  the  Rule  of 
Faith  are  the  answers  of  the  church  to  the  ques- 
tion, What  is  Christianity?  And  whereas  in  the 
Apologists'  time  all  philosophizing  of  devout  men, 
so  only  that  they  did  not  touch  certain  very 
fundamental  things,  was  legitimate,  a  century 
later  speculation  had  to  hold  itself  to  the  docu- 
ments, and  to  deal  with  the  facts  as  these  are  al- 
leged in  the  baptismal  symbol.  Men  deemed  that 
in  all  the  speculation  which  they  might  indulge,  they 


CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE       307 

still  only  interpreted  those  facts  and  documents. 
And  yet  this,  which  Origen  and  all  men  like  him 
would  have  acknowledged  to  be  the  true  theory  of 
the  situation,  was  soon  sadly  strained.  In  the  end  it 
was  completely  reversed.  When  one  views  the  theo- 
logical movement  which  Athanasius  led,  and  which 
issued  in  the  Nicene  Creed,  one  can  no  longer  say 
that  it  was  the  obvious  function  of  theology  to 
interpret  the  Rule  of  Faith.  On  the  contrary,  it 
has  become  the  function  of  the  creed  to  formulate 
and  sustain  theology.  These  two  apprehensions  act 
and  react  throughout  the  history  of  doctrine.  The 
intellectual  element  more  and  more  preponderates. 
In  the  end  men  actually  attempted  to  place  the 
essential  element  of  Christian  faith  and  the  cohe- 
sive force  of  the  Christian  body  in  expressions  of 
opinion  concerning  matters  so  remote  that  they 
may  almost  be  said  to  have  no  relation  to  the 
Christian  life,  and  if  taken  seriously,  to  be  neces- 
sary causes  of  division  among  Christians,  rather 
than  of  that  unity  which  Christ  designed. 

And  yet  so  natural  were  the  causes  which  we 
have  endeavored  to-  indicate,  which  led  up  to 
the  making  of  a  theological  statement  the  bond 
of  unity  of  Christendom,  so  inevitable  were  these 
causes  in  their  working,  that  we  are  bound  to 
confess  that,  save  for  the  exaggerations  of  which 
we  have  just  spoken,  these  causes  had,  in  their 
own  way,  a  certain  great  historic  right.  It  is  diffi- 
cult to  see  how  the  Christian  body,  in  the  time  of 
which  we  speak,  could  have  escaped  entire  disinte- 


308       CANONIZATION    AND    HISTORY    OF    DOCTRINE 

gration  without  that  adherence  to  some  few  essen- 
tials which  was  thus  in  the  Rule  of  Faith  provided 
for.     At  that  time  no  one  seems  to  have  reahzed 
this  ominous  transfer  of  emphasis  from  the  moral 
to  the  intellectual  element  in  Christianity.    No  one 
seems  to  have  appreciated  the  transformation  of  the 
Christian  society  which  was  taking  place.     In  that 
society  the  bond  of  unity  had  been  the  enthusiasm 
for  a  person  and  the  joy  in  imitation  of  his  life. 
In  that  community  the  bond  of  union  came  to  be 
the  holding  of  certain  tenets  which,  some  of  them 
at   all  events,  belonged  in  strictness  only  to  the 
hfe  of  that  particular  time.     The  interest  threat- 
ened always  to  pass  to  orthodoxy  and  away  from 
righteousness.      The  sin  lay  near  of  withholding 
brotherly  love  from  those  who  could  not  utter  the 
formula,  and  even  of  denying  them  God's  grace. 
Men  did  not  realize  that  all  this  was  happening. 
Men,  since  that  time,  have  not  always  been  aware 
of  the  evils  which  have  ensued.     And  yet  we  need 
only  to  turn  our  thought  to  this  matter  to  perceive 
how  great  is  the  mistake  which  has  been  made  and 
to  realize  that  the  highest  zeal  for  the  honor  of 
Christ  does  not  demand  that  the  mistake  shall  be 
continued  and  confirmed. 


LECTURE   VIII 

THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY   IN   THE 
CHRISTIAN   CHURCH 


LECTURE   VIII 

THE   IDEA   OF  AUTHORITY   IN   THE 
CHRISTIAN    CHURCH 

We  may  begin  the  discussion  of  the  topic  of  this 
lecture  by  referring  to  the  two  passages  in  the 
New  Testament  in  which  alone,  in  any  sense  which 
illuminates  our  general  theme,  the  word  ''authority" 
is  used  concerning  Jesus  Christ  himself.  The  first 
of  these  is  a  passage  from  the  synoptic  tradition, 
which,  in  the  Gospel  according  to  Mark,  stands  in 
a  reference  to  Jesus'  teaching  in  the  synagogue  at 
Capernaum,  at  the  very  beginning  of  his  ministry.^ 
In  the  Gospel  according  to  Matthew  the  same  verse 
occurs  at  the  end  of  the  record  of  the  Sermon 
on  the  Mount.2  It  is  related  that  "When  Jesus 
ended  these  words,  the  multitudes  were  astonished 
at  his  teaching;  for  he  taught  them  as  one  hav- 
ing authority,  and  not  as  their  scribes." 

The  picture  of  the  scribe  as  he  is  painted  for  us 
in  the  Gospels,  the  description  of  him  which  we 
gather  from  the  literature  and  history  of  the  age, 
leaves  us  no  question  of  the  meaning  of  the  con- 
trast which  is  here  designed.  The  scribe  taught 
as  one  who  perpetually  referred  to  his  authorities. 
Jesus  taught  as  one  who  himself  had  and  exercised 
authority.     He  taught  as  one  who  himself  was  the 

1  Mark  i.  22.  2  Matthew  vii.  29. 

3" 


312  THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

authority.  The  scribe  taught  as  one  who  was  sure 
of  things  only  in  so  far  as  he  ascertained  that  some 
one  in  repute  had  already  said  those  things.  Jesus 
taught  as  one  to  whom  the  repute  of  the  authorities 
was  a  matter  which  he  felt  competent  to  weigh. 
He  taught  as  one  to  whose  sureness  it  was  not 
necessary  that  his  utterances  should  be  found  in 
consonance  with  those  of  the  ancient  and  the  great. 
There  is  no  trace  of  anything  overweening  in  his 
lofty  consciousness.  But  he  seems  to  have  felt 
himself  not  less  original  when  he  chanced  to  agree 
with  the  ancients,  and  not  less  confident  of  his 
judgments  and  of  himself  when  he  disagreed.  To 
the  height  of  certain  of  his  assurances  the  great- 
est of  the  great  had  not  yet  risen.  They  are  such 
as  no  man  before  him  ever  gave.  And  no  man 
since  he  gave  them  has  surpassed  the  insight  which 
some  of  these  assurances  display.  The  scribe  taught 
as  one  for  whom  inspiration  was  confined  to  docu- 
ments, revelation  was  an  ancient  history,  God's 
dealing  with  men  was  a  matter  of  record,  and  the 
past  alone  the  time  when  men  walked  with  God 
and  when  God  spoke  with  men.  The  scribes  still 
teach  in  the  same  way.  Jesus  taught  as  one  who 
was  himself  full  of  inspiration,  who  was  conscious 
of  himself  as  revelation,  who  felt  himself  to  be 
all  taken  up  into  God,  and  calmly  deemed  that  it 
was  God  who,  as  the  force  and  spirit  of  his  whole 
life,  was  manifest  in  him.  There  is  an  immediate- 
ness  about  his  spiritual  insight  and  his  moral  utter- 
ance ;   despite   his   keen   sympathies,  there  is  yet 


THE    IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY  313 

a  kind  of  detachment  from  his  fellows;  there  is 
an  independence  of  his  judgment  concerning  men, 
and  an  originality  of  his  ailfirmation  touching  God, 
which  not  even  all  of  our  familiarity  with  it  can 
divest  of  what  is  positively  startUng. 

The  scribe  is  the  very  representative  of  that  use 
of  the  letter  of  which  Paul  said,  that  it  brings  into 
bondage,  killeth.^  Jesus  is  the  very  presence  of 
that  spirit  which  gives  freedom,  life.  The  scribes 
in  their  influence  over  others  sink  to  that  level  of 
petty  tyranny  of  which  those  only  seem  capable 
who  operate  with  a  power  which  is  not  their  own. 
Jesus  rises  to  a  pitch  of  self-assertiveness  which 
has  never  been  approached  by  any  human  being. 
And  yet  that  which  would  be  insufferable  egotism 
in  another  seems  fitting  in  him.  It  is  but  the  ex- 
pression of  humiUty  in  him.  After  all,  it  is  so 
transparently  evident  that  it  is  not  himself,  but 
only  truth,  goodness,  God,  which  in  these  exalted 
moments  he  asserts.  He  is  never  more  selfless 
than  in  these  times  when  he  most  asserts  himself. 
It  is  himself  only  as  the  exponent  of  the  truth,  it 
is  himself  only  as  the  revealer  of  the  good,  it  is 
himself  only  as  at  one  with  God,  that  he  asserts. 
"  I  speak  not  of  myself,  but  the  Father  that  dwelleth 
in  me,  He  doeth  the  works,"  ^  —  this  is  his  con- 
stantly reiterated  claim.  And  the  secret  of  the 
homage  which  Jesus  has  commanded  lies  in  the 
fact  that  the  conscience  of  humanity  has  allowed 
that  claim.     If  the  inhabitants  of  Capernaum  felt 

1  2  Corinthians  iii.  6.  ^  John  xiv.  10. 


314  THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 

that   he    spoke   as    one  who    had    authority,   the 
Fourth   Gospel   makes  Jesus    himself  say  that  it 
was  the  Father  who  had  given  the  Son  authority.^ 
Devout   Jew   that  he  was,  the  documents  and 
institutions  of  the  ancient  faith   meant  much  to 
Jesus.     He  attacked  the  scribes  not  because  these 
made  the  sacred  authorities  to  mean  too  great  a 
thing.     He  assailed  them  because  they  made  those 
documents  and  institutions  to  mean  merely  an  out- 
ward thing.    And  yet,  over  the  authority  of  these 
documents  and  sacred  institutions,  over  the  laws, 
customs,  and  dogmas  of  the  ancient  faith,  Jesus  set 
himself  without  a  moment's  hesitation.     "  Ye  have 
heard  that  it  hath  been  said  by  them  of  old  time : 
....  but  I  say  unto  you."  ^     ''  Moses  indeed  per- 
mitted you  these  things,  but  it  was  for  the  hardness 
of  your  hearts.    From  the  beginning  it  was  not  so."  ^ 
The  authoritative  teachings  and  organization,  the 
sacred  documents — what  were  these  all  but  just  the 
record  and  the  witness  of  men's  effort  to  enshrine 
and  to  perpetuate  that  inspiration  and  authority 
of  Almighty  God  which,  before  it  was  in  any  insti- 
tution or  in  any  writing,  Hghtened  the  minds,  con- 
trolled the  wills,  burned  in  the  souls  of  prophets, 
of  lawgivers  and  of  poets,  and  which  now  flamed 
in   Christ's    own    soul.      The  Epistle  to  the   He- 
brews in  its  opening  verse  puts  this  thought  per- 
fectly, apprehending  Jesus  just  as   he   seems  to 
have  apprehended  himself,   "God  having  of  old 
time  spoken  unto  the  fathers  in  the  prophets,  by 

1  John  V.  27.  2  Matthew  v.  33.  *  liicf.,  xix.  8. 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY  315 

divers  portions,  and  in  divers  manners,  hath  at  the 
end  of  these  days  spoken  to  us  in  a  Son."  ^ 

And  we  have  lived  to  see  how,  in  the  long  course 
of  Christian  history,  at  one  time  and  another,  the 
doctrines,  the  organization  and  the  documents  of 
the  new  faith  have  been  operated  with  in  the  old 
way.     We   have   lived   to   see   how  these  things, 
which  were  merely  the  deposit  of  some  portion  of 
the  authority  that  was  in  Jesus,  have  passed  under 
the   scribe's   own   notion   of   the  nature  of   their 
authority.     We  have  lived  to  see  each  of  them  in 
turn  so  apprehended  as  if  it  were  possible  for  them 
to  have  immediate  authority.     In  reference  to  the 
institutions  of  that  very  faith  which  takes  its  name 
from  Jesus,  that  lesson  has  been  again  forgotten 
which  Jesus  taught  with  such  earnestness  concern- 
ing the  doctrines  and  the  documents  of  the  Jewish 
faith.     He  had  taught  that  these  have  no  authority, 
save  as  they  are  the  expressions  of  truth  and  good- 
ness, embodiments  of  something  of  the  spirit  of  the 
God  who  is  behind  them  all.     If  there  is  one  thing 
that  the  history  which  we  have  been  following  in 
these  lectures  has  made  plain,  it  is  the  thing  to 
which  the  profoundest  philosophy  would  have  led 
us,  even  without  the  aid  of  the  history.     We  chose 
the  historical  rather   than   the   philosophical   ap- 
proach to  the  whole  problem  of  authority  because 
the  historical  treatment  is  one  which  can  be  made 
picturesque  and  dramatic.      It  is  the  one  which 
tingles  with  human  interest  and  impresses  every- 

1  Hebrews  i.  i. 


3l6  THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 

body.  But  if  there  is  one  thing  which  our  study 
in  these  lectures  has  brought  out  with  clearness,  it 
is  this,  that  the  authority  of  the  things  which  we 
have  named,  that  of  Christian  doctrine,  that  of 
institutions  and  of  writings,  is  but  a  mediate  one. 
These  all  have  indeed  inspiration,  but  that  inspira- 
tion is  the  Christ.  Their  authority  is  that  of  the 
Christ  whom  they  enshrine.  Or,  to  go  still  one 
step  farther,  it  is  the  authority  of  the  God  whom 
Christ  himself  incarnated.  These  things  have 
authority  precisely  in  so  far  as  they  embody  and 
perpetuate  the  personal  revelation.  The  authority 
is  Christ's  alone.  Or,  if  Jesus'  own  mode  of  speech 
rings  in  our  ears,  and  his  selflessness  rebukes  us, 
we  must  say  again  what  Jesus  said,  that  the  au- 
thority of  the  thing  which  he  spoke  lay  in  its  truth  ; 
the  authority  of  the  goodness  he  demanded  was  the 
eternal  authoritativeness  of  what  is  good ;  and  his 
own  authority  as  he  sought  to  show  forth  God  was 
that  of  the  God  whom  he  showed  forth. 

We  have  seen  all  these  things  named  win  in 
their  time  their  hold  upon  the  world  because  of 
that  measure  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  which  they 
contained.  Gospels  came  to  have  their  authority 
because  they  were  the  best  that  men  could  do  to 
fill  the  place  of  Jesus.  Books,  dogmas,  organi- 
zations, came  to  have  authority  only  as  they  were 
substitutes  for  the  influence  of  persons,  and  espe- 
cially as  they  were  representative  of  the  influence 
of  the  one  mighty,  quickening  personaHty.  Their 
authoritativeness  for   a  new  time  depends    upon 


THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY  317 

the  question  whether  they  are  still  true  and  effec- 
tive representatives.  All  these,  even  after  they 
have  gained  their  authority,  have  continually  to  be 
interpreted  by  personaHty.  It  is  this  personal  note 
which  the  discussion  of  the  problem  of  authority 
in  time  past  has  largely  lacked.  The  failure  to 
realize  that  at  bottom  authority  is  only  and  always 
of  persons  has  vitiated  much  of  the  discussion. 
Men  have  spoken  of  the  authority  of  the  church, 
as  if  the  church  could  by  any  possibility  have 
authority,  save  as  it  enshrines  personality  and  be- 
comes a  sort  of  sum  of  the  influence  of  person- 
alities for  the  guidance  of  the  life  of  persons  in 
the  world.  The  essence  of  the  authority  of  the 
church  Hes  in  its  representing  a  corporate  experi- 
ence, which  yet  was  individual  experience  before 
it  was  corporate.  We  speak  of  the  authority  of 
Scripture.  We  do  not  always  perceive  that  we 
never  really  get  at  the  authority  of  Scripture. 
The  question  is  always,  Which  is  the  authoritative 
interpretation  of  Scripture  ?  The  question  is.  Who 
are  the  interpreters  to  whom  we  should  defer  .^ 
They  may  be  the  dead,  who  have  formulated  for  us 
their  interpretation  in  an  honored  creed.  They 
may  be  the  living,  who  represent  the  tradition  of  an 
institution.  Or,  once  more,  we  ourselves  may  be 
the  interpreters,  if  we  solemnly  take  this  responsi- 
bility upon  ourselves.  But  always  the  interpreters 
are  persons.  The  authorities  of  Scripture,  church, 
and  dogma,  are  operative  always  and  only  through 
persons.      This   fact,    that    authority  in  the   last 


3l8  THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

analysis  is  personal,  that  it  is  the  authority  of 
God,  that  it  is  the  authority  of  Christ  and  of  men 
only  because  God  indwells  in  Christ  and  men,  that 
it  belongs  to  documents,  organizations,  rites  or 
creeds,  only  in  a  sense  derived  from  these,  this 
fact  is  surely  the  deepest  fact  to  which  our  study 
in  these  lectures  leads. 

Even  the  perverted  forms  in  which  the  principle 
of  authority  sometimes  manifests  itself,  even  those 
strange  and  humiliating  spectacles  in  which  a 
fanatical,  intriguing,  or  hypocritical  personage 
obtains  ascendency  over  others,  cast  a  curious 
side-light  upon  our  assertion  that  all  authority  is 
personal.  Half  crazed  themselves,  or  shrewdly 
calculating  on  the  weakness  of  their  fellows,  these 
masterful  people  meet  halfway  the  class  of  men 
and  women,  strangely  numerous,  who  are  only  too 
glad  to  be  mastered,  and  only  too  willing  to  lay  off 
their  gravest  responsibilities  upon  others  if  they 
may.  And  even  the  lowest  charlatan  says,  "  Come 
to  me,"  just  as  Jesus  of  Nazareth  also  said,  "  Come 
unto  me."  Documents,  institutions,  dogmas,  can 
say  only,  "  Go  to  him."  Thus  from  the  opposite 
extreme  of  men's  experience,  from  the  wastes  of 
human  error  and  the  depths  of  human  folly,  one 
gets  a  singular  confirmation  of  the  principle  which 
we  discover  at  the  very  pinnacle  of  truth  and 
goodness  as  these  are  shown  forth  in  Jesus  Christ, 
the  principle  that  authority  is  personal.  Even 
the  counterfeit  has  seized  upon  the  true  prin- 
ciple.    The    ultimate    authority   is    that   of    God. 


THE   IDEA   OF    AUTHORITY  319 

And  the  primary  witness  to  God  is  a  man.  Author- 
ity is,  therefore,  derivatively,  a  quality  of  men  in 
whom  the  spirit  of  truth  and  goodness,  the  spirit 
of  God,  dwells.  Only  after  that  can  it  be  said  to  be 
a  quality  of  books,  of  institutions,  and  of  teachings, 
as  these  have  taken  up  into  themselves  and  made 
permanent  something  of  the  spirit  of  these  men. 

The  other  passage  to  which  I  referred  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  lecture  as  using  the  word  "  author- 
ity" concerning  Christ  himself,  occurs  in  all  three 
of  the  synoptic  Gospels.^  It  is  that  passage  in 
which  the  chief  priests  and  elders  of  the  people 
are  represented  coming  to  Jesus  as  he  taught  and 
saying  to  him :  "  By  what  authority  doest  thou 
these  things  ?  and  who  gave  thee  this  authority  ? 
And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  them,  I  also 
will  ask  you  one  question,  which  if  ye  tell  me,  I 
likewise  will  tell  you  by  what  authority  I  do  these 
things.  The  baptism  of  John,  whence  was  it  ?  from 
Heaven  or  from  men  ?  And  they  reasoned  with 
themselves,  saying,  If  we  shall  say,  From  Heaven; 
he  will  say  unto  us,  Why  then  did  ye  not  believe 
him  ?  But  if  we  shall  say,  From  men ;  we  fear  the 
multitude,  for  all  hold  John  as  a  prophet.  And 
they  answered  Jesus,  and  said.  We  know  not.  He 
also  said  unto  them.  Neither  tell  I  you  by  what 
authority  I  do  these  things."  Now  what  is  that 
which  Jesus  has  here  said  ?  What  is  this  answer 
of  Jesus,  but  just  the  setting  forth,  in  noblest  man- 
ner, of  the  effect  and  working  of  that  true  kind  of 

1  Mark  xi.  28;   Matthew  xxi.  23;   Luke  xx.  2  f. 


320  THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY 

authoritativeness  which  he  claimed  ?  What  is  this 
but  the  confident  appeal  to  the  truthfulness  of 
things,  to  the  rightfulness  of  claims,  to  the  self- 
evidencing  power  of  that  which  is  divine  ?  This 
truth  of  things  if  a  man  see,  this  rightfulness  of 
things  if  he  perceive,  this  power  of  what  is  just  and 
holy  if  a  man  feel,  no  further  authority  is  necessary. 
And  this  truth  and  goodness  and  the  commanding 
quality  of  these,  if  a  man  does  not  perceive,  if  he 
wills  not  to  obey,  no  further  authority  which  can 
be  imagined  is  of  the  least  avail.  If  these  things 
carry  no  sanction  within  themselves,  there  is  no 
sanction  of  them.  And  if  they  cannot  make  them- 
selves felt  within  the  man  himself,  and  not  merely 
without  him  and  upon  him,  then  they  do  but  ruin 
the  manhood  of  him  upon  whom  they  make  them- 
selves felt.  Any  other  authoritativeness  than  that 
of  the  truth  itself,  responded  to  by  the  nature  of 
the  man  himself,  avails  only  to  dwarf  and  not  to 
develop  the  man  over  whom  it  prevails.  It  can 
but  destroy,  it  can  never  fulfil,  his  noblest  nature. 
It  crushes  down,  it  never  builds  up,  the  manhood 
wherein  his  likeness  to  his  God  consists. 

We  often  read  the  passage,  as  if  Jesus  had 
shown  merely  his  acumen  in  the  evading  of  his 
questioners.  We  read  as  if  he  had  but  shrewdly  put 
them  into  a  place  from  which  they  could  not  an- 
swer, just  as  they  on  their  part  often  tried  merely 
to  draw  him  into  difficulty.  On  the  contrary, 
whatever  was  the  spirit  of  their  questioning,  Jesus 
has  here  given  us  the  most  serious  of  answers,  and 


THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY  321 

one  whose  significance  we  can  never  overestimate. 
He  calmly  puts  his  own  claim  on  the  same  basis 
with  the  claim  of  John  the  Baptist.  With  a  bold- 
ness which,  if  this  were  not  a  true  reminiscence, 
a  disciple  of  Jesus  might  have  hesitated  to  em- 
ploy, he  puts  his  own  divinest  teaching,  in  its  first 
approach  to  men,  on  the  same  level  precisely  with 
that  on  which  the  teaching  of  the  Baptist  stood. 
It  is  the  level,  namely,  of  that  which  is  obviously 
true  and  right,  the  authoritativeness  of  which  all 
lies  in  the  fact  that  it  is  true  and  right.  He  con- 
victs his  questioners  out  of  their  own  mouths  of 
one  of  two  things.  Either  they  have  been  so  per- 
verse as  not  to  see  the  truth  and  not  to  feel  the 
right.  And  if  they  have  been  thus  perverse  and 
have  not  seen  the  truth  of  John  the  Baptist's  teach- 
ing, why  should  he  deem  that  the  case  will  be  dif- 
ferent with  his  own }  Or  else  they  have  been  disin- 
genuous and  have  not  obeyed  the  truth  which  they 
did  see.  It  is  of  no  use  to  appeal  to  any  higher 
authority.  There  is  no  higher  authority.  The 
very  thing  which  Jesus  seems  here  to  be  saying 
is  that,  in  the  case  of  these  men  the  highest  au- 
thority has  been  appealed  to  and,  for  the  time  at 
least,  has  failed.  The  relation,  as  it  lies  in  men's 
minds,  is  often  the  reverse  of  this.  If  a  man  does 
not  see  the  truth,  and,  still  more,  if  he  will  not  do 
it,  then  one  has  recourse  to  his  authorities,  as  if 
there  were  some  authority  above  the  truth.  What 
Jesus  here  makes  manifest  is  that  the  truth  is  the 
authority.     The  authorities  have  no  authority  save 


322  THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

because  of  and  exactly  in  proportion  to  their  truth. 
Jesus  will  not   appeal  save   to    manhood  for   the 
highest  things  touching  the  life  of  man.     He  will 
not  appeal  save    to  God  for  the  things  of  God. 
He  will  not  appeal  to  the  authority  of  God  in  such 
a  manner  as  to  suppress  men's   intelligence  and 
subvert  their  liberty.     He  will  rather  address  him- 
self fearlessly  to  their  inteUigence,  he  will  quicken 
in  them  the  sense  of  inviolable  duty.     And  then 
he  will  abide  the  issue.    The  issue  he  seeks  is  that 
men  shall  go  forth  to  their  duty  with  a  sense  of  ob- 
Hgation  in  which,  when  it  is  at  its  highest,  men  are 
most   free,  and   in   which   yet   they    are   divinely 
bound.     Jesus  will  put  no  man  under  compulsion. 
Or,  rather,  he  has  faced  the  fact  that  for   man, 
as  God  has    made  him,  there   is   no   compulsion. 
There  is  no  possible  compulsion  save  that  which 
comes  with  a  man's  own  free  recognition  of  that 
which,  if  a  man  recognize  it,  must  compel  him,  or 
else  brand  him  as  no  true  man  if  he  will  not  be 
compelled.     As  the  authority  of  Jesus  is  that  of  the 
God  dwelling  within  himself,  so  his  appeal  is  to 
the  deepest  self,  the  indwelling  God  in  men.     The 
appeal  of  Christ  to  the  consciousness  of  men  is 
so   direct    and    so    unerring  that   any  other  form 
of   urgency  to  which   through   haste  or   through 
anxiety  men  may  resort,  merely  perverts  and  im- 
perils the  whole  matter.     So  truly  is  this  authority 
of  the  truth  itself  the  final  authority,  and  so  abso- 
lutely  is   the   responsibility   of   a   man's   attitude 
toward  the  truth  with  the  man  himself,  that  noth- 


THE   IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY  3^3 

ing  that  Christ  ever  sought  for  mankind  is  to  be 
gained  by  an  appeal  of  any  other  sort.  This  is  the 
sense  of  that  sublime  word  of  Jesus  to  which  we 
have  referred  :  **  If  any  man  keep  not  my  sayings, 
I  judge  him  not.  .  .  .  The  word  that  I  spake,  the 
same  will  judge  him  in  the  last  day."  ^ 

Many  of  the  discussions  of  the  problem  of 
authority  are  open  to  this  criticism  also,  that  they 
fail  to  realize  that  the  sole  purpose  of  a  religious 
authority  is  the  creation  of  character.  And  yet 
the  sole  possibility  of  the  creation  of  character  is 
in  the  free  allegiance  of  a  man  to  that  of  which 
he  is  himself  the  judge,  and  which  he  obeys, 
not  as  a  mere  form  of  compulsion  or  of  external 
restraint  upon  him,  but  as  the  authoritative  voice 
within  him  of  that  God  to  whom  he  cannot  be 
untrue  without  ceasing  to  be  true  to  his  own  self 
as  well.  And  yet  authority,  religious  authority 
Hke  every  other,  is  almost  always  invoked  in  a 
sense  in  which  that  authority,  if  yielded  to,  would 
itself  prove  destructive  of  character.  The  only 
purpose  which  constraint  can  ever  have  is  this, 
that  it  may  aid  in  the  highest  development  of  self- 
restraint.  And  yet  even  a  just  restraint  is  often 
applied  in  such  a  manner  as  to  array,  for  the  mo- 
ment, a  man's  true  self  against  all  restraint.  Con- 
trol over  men  in  the  mere  spirit  of  authority  has 
usually  resulted  in  the  destruction  of  the  men's 
desire  for  self-control.  It  leaves  undeveloped  the 
capacity  for  self-control.     It  has  taken  away  the 

1  John  xii.  47-48. 


324  THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

opportunity  and  freedom  in  which  alone  men  could 
learn    self-control.       In    giving   men    an  outward 
reliance  it  takes  away  all  noble  self-reliance.     The 
tragedy  of  the  religious  education  of  the  race,  like 
the  tragedy  of  the  training  in  many  a  home,  origi- 
nates in  the  failure  to  find  the  adjustment  of  these 
two  things.     Surely  the  sole  purpose  of  the  author- 
ity of  the  home  is  the  creation  and  the  develop- 
ment of  the  character  of  those  growing  up  within 
that  home.     And  yet  the  sole  possibiHty  of  such 
development  of  character  lies  in  the  free  allegiance 
of  those  in  the  home  to  things  which  are  not  true 
and  right  because  the  authorities  of  the  home  de- 
clare them  to  be  so,  but  which  the  authorities  of 
the  home  enforce  because  they  are  true  and  right. 
It  may  be  open  to  the  state  to  say  that  in  its  exer- 
cise  of    authority   this    particular   man   must   be 
coerced  for  the  sake  of  the  other  men.     General 
purposes  may  supersede  individual  ones.     But  ex- 
actly in  the  proportion  in  which  a  home   admits 
that  principle   it  ceases  to  be  a  home.      It   has 
abandoned   its   purpose   for   the   development  of 
that  particular  child's  character  concerning  whom 
it  made  so  disastrous  an  admission.     And  in  the 
great   house  of  the  world,  under  the  Father  who 
is  in  Heaven,  religion,  which  is  supposed  to  be  the 
relation  of   that    Father  to  all   his   children,  can 
never   make   that   compromise  or   approach   that 
abandonment   of    its  ideal.      ReHgion   is  for   the 
sake  of   the   development   in   character   of  every 
man   over   whom   its   authority   is   exercised.      It 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY  32$ 

dares  not  exercise  its  authority  in  such  a  manner 
as  to  destroy  his  character,  even  though  it  claim  to 
do  so  in  order  to  bring  about  his  salvation.  His 
salvation  is  his  character.  His  character  is  his 
salvation. 

It  will  not  do  to  say  that  there  is  a  religion  of 
authority  for  the  more  yielding  natures  and  for  the 
backward  portions  of  the  human  race,  while  there 
is  a  religion  of  inspiration  for  the  bolder  spirits 
and  the  races  which  are  more  advanced  in  ethical 
development.  That  is  not  rehgion  at  all  which 
sets  before  itself  a  mere  outward  order  in  this 
world,  or  a  mere  conferment  in  the  next,  and 
regards  the  temper  of  submission  as  an  end  in 
itself.  The  religion  of  authority,  so  called,  has  no 
right  to  exist,  save  as  it  leads  up  to  and  is  dis- 
solved in  the  religion  of  inspiration.  The  disci- 
pline of  a  home  has  no  right  to  exist  save  as  it 
leads  up  to  and  is  eliminated  in  the  self-discipline 
of  those  who  go  forth  from  that  home.  The  one 
religion  certainly  has  these  two  aspects.  And  it 
may  be  that  it  is  as  grave  a  mistake  to  seek  to 
apply  that  which  we  have  called  the  religion  of 
inspiration  to  a  good  part  of  the  human  race  to-day, 
as  it  would  be  to  expect  those  men  in  their  man- 
hood to  show  self-discipline  whose  childhood  had 
been  set  round  by  no  firm  and  wise  discipline. 
We  may  be  grateful  that  the  so-called  religion  of 
authority  does  for  a  good  part  of  the  human  race 
what  the  religion  of  inspiration  shows  no  present 
capacity   to   do.       But   the   religion   of    authority 


326  THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY 

would  be  a  different  thing  from  that  which  we  in 
history  have  known  under  that  name,  if  once  it 
recognized  that  it  has  no  authority  save  that  of  the 
truth  which  it  expresses  and  of  the  goodness  which 
it  represents.  The  parental  authority  is  ennobled  in 
proportion  as  we  realize  that  in  it  is  nothing  arbi- 
trary or  mysterious,  nothing  which  exists  for  the 
parent's  sake  alone.  The  parental  authority  is  a 
different  thing  from  that  which  we  have  sometimes 
seen,  so  soon  as  it  is  realized  that  the  basis  of  that 
authority  is  only  the  truth  and  goodness  which  the 
parent  himself  seeks  to  obey  before  he  dares  seek 
to  exact  obedience  of  others.  And  the  religion  of 
authority  would  be  a  different  thing  from  that 
which  we  have  known  under  that  name,  if  once 
it  were  recognized  that  it  exists,  not  for  its  own 
aggrandizement,  not  merely  as  one  of  the  forces  of 
order  in  this  world  or  for  the  conferment  of  bene- 
fits in  the  next ;  but  it  exists  literally  in  order  that 
its  own  methods,  and  with  these  its  own  self,  shall 
be  done  away.  Precisely  so  the  whole  need  and 
justification  of  the  home  authority  arises  from  the 
hope  and  from  the  struggle  and  prayer  that  there 
will  come  a  time  when  there  shall  be  no  more  need 
of  such  authority.  It  is  exercised  with  no  other 
purpose  than  to  bring  nearer  the  time  when  it 
will  be  no  longer  exercised. 

But  let  us  turn  for  a  moment  to  the  concrete 
sense  which  the  word  authority  has  actually 
borne  in  the  historic  discussions  of  this  subject. 
We   indeed   have,    over   and    over   again   in    the 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY  32/ 

progress  of  these  lectures,  gained  for  ourselves  a 
larger  sense  of  that  word.  Our  argument  has 
issued  in  a  conception  of  authority  which  makes  it 
essentially  inward  and  spiritual,  in  the  last  analysis 
personal,  the  authority  of  truth,  of  goodness,  and 
of  God  himself,  indeed  of  God  alone.  It  is  this 
authority  of  God  which  has  seemed  to  us  to  lie  be- 
hind and  to  be  manifested  in  the  authority  of  sacred 
books,  of  Christian  institutions,  of  doctrines  and 
ritual,  and,  it  is  no  irreverence  to  say  also,  of  Christ 
himself.  Christ  said  of  his  own  authority  that  it 
was  that  of  God.  We  have  felt  that  the  divine 
authority  could  never  have  any  purpose  save  that 
of  the  development  in  character  of  those  over 
whom  that  authority  was  exercised.  And  if  ever 
any  of  these  manifestations  of  the  divine  authority 
have  been  so  apprehended  as  to  impair  man's  free- 
dom, to  diminish  his  responsibility,  to  injure  his 
character,  in  that  measure  their  divineness  and  the 
real  meaning  of  their  authority  has  been  lost.  We 
have  felt  this  authority  as  one  before  which  a  man 
may  bow  in  an  absoluteness  of  allegiance  which  he 
would  yield  to  nothing  outward,  and  yet  it  leaves 
him  as  free  as  he  was  before  he  bowed.  The  obe- 
dience to  this  authority  makes  a  man  great.  The 
submission  of  himself  to  any  other  is  destructive 
of  his  greatness.  This  may  be  our  sense  of  the 
word.  We  may  be  satisfied  in  our  own  minds  that 
this  is  the  deepest  sense  of  that  word.  We  may 
be  convinced  that  this  is  the  authority  which  all 
these  others  only  shadow  forth. 


328  THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 

But  we  are  well  aware  that  this  is  not  the  sense 
of  the  word  authority  which  has  been  common  in 
the  discussion  of  this  theme.  We  must  not  juggle 
with  words.  We  must  acknowledge  in  fairness 
that  when  men,  for  the  most  part  at  any  rate,  have 
talked  of  the  authority  of  the  Scripture,  the  au- 
thority of  the  church,  they  have  not  meant  what 
we  have  above  said.  They  have  thought  of  this 
authority  as  something  which,  not  mediately  but 
immediately,  inhered  in  the  Scripture  and  in  the 
church.  They  have  meant  something  which  was 
outwardly  operative  upon  men.  They  have  not 
always  thought  of  the  inviolable  relation  of  au- 
thority in  its  working  to  the  highest  character  of 
those  upon  whom  it  is  brought  to  bear.  They  have 
thought  of  the  reward  of  obedience  as  something 
different  from  the  perfected  nature  of  the  obedient 
man  himself.  They  have  thought  of  the  authority 
of  church  and  Scripture  not  as  something  which 
necessarily  carried  with  it  the  intelligence  of  men. 
They  have  deemed  that  it  commanded  men  whether 
it  carried  their  intelligence  or  not.  They  have 
thought  of  it  not  as  something  which  informed  a 
man's  own  free  will,  but  as  something  which  right- 
fully controlled  him  even  against  his  vv^ill.  Indeed, 
it  has  often  appeared  to  the  devout  soul  the  acme 
of  duty  and  the  substance  of  its  highest  privilege 
thus  to  be  absolutely  commanded  by  the  divine. 
That  has  appeared  the  highest  joy,  the  character- 
istic religious  joy,  in  which  a  man  thus  surrenders 
his  intelligence,  his  will,  his  whole  self  to  the  divine. 


THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY  329 

Indeed,  if  we  are  to  speak  fairly,  we  must  go  still 
farther.  We  must  own  that  this  religion  of  an 
outward  authority  appeals  to  that  deeper  will  which 
is  so  often,  in  every  one  of  us,  in  contradiction  with 
the  current  will.  It  allies  itself  to  the  sense  of 
mystery  in  which  the  wearied  understanding  often 
takes  its  refuge,  knowing  that  God  and  the  things 
of  God  are  mysterious,  after  all.  One  shows  him- 
self ignorant  of  one  of  the  profoundest  aspects  of 
all  religious  history  who  does  not  know  that  the 
religion  of  authority,  the  religion,  that  is,  which 
apprehends  authority  in  an  external  sense,  ad- 
dresses itself  to  some  best  things  in  the  human 
soul  as  well  as  to  some  things  which  are  not  the  best. 
Whether  we  find  this  authority  exercised  under 
historic  assumptions  by  the  priesthood  of  an  ordered 
institution,  or  by  some  self-constituted  leader  whose 
pretensions  have  obtained  among  his  adherents  a 
credence  at  which  we  can  never  sufficiently  be 
amazed,  we  should  be  gravely  mistaken  if  we 
should  ascribe  this  whole  phenomenon  to  the  pas- 
sion for  power,  to  the  desire  of  one  man  to  control 
his  fellows.  A  thousand  times  more  it  is  to  be 
ascribed  to  the  vague  and,  shall  we  not  frankly  say, 
the  true  desire  of  men  and  women  to  be  controlled. 
It  is  to  be  ascribed  to  the  profound  and  correct 
instinct  that  religion  itself  is  in  its  essence  a  control. 
It  is  to  be  ascribed  to  men's  distrust  of  themselves 
in  face  of  the  things  of  God;  a  distrust  which  some- 
times seems  to  be  the  only  proper  attitude  of  a  true 
man.     It  is  to  be  credited  to  men's  shrinking  from 


330  THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 

the  responsibility  which  is  involved  in  the  guidance 
and  control  of  their  own  lives  and  in  the  reliance 
upon  nothing  except  God  and  themselves.  It  was 
not  irony,  it  was  mystic  passion  which  made  a  great 
soul  of  a  former  age  to  cry :  "  I  believe  because 
the  thing  is  impossible."  It  has  been  the  very  glory 
of  devoted  souls  to  surrender  themselves.  The 
harder  was  the  surrender,  the  deeper  was  the  joy. 
He  who  has  not  found  himself  at  some  time  in  that 
position  has  had  no  deep  religious  experience  as 
yet.  And  when  one  listens  to  the  boasting  which 
is  sometimes  indulged  concerning  the  sovereignty 
of  every  man's  intelligence  in  every  matter,  even 
in  those  of  which  he  has  had  no  experience  what- 
ever ;  and  when  one  hears  the  assertion  of  a  man's 
inviolable  liberty  to  follow  every  whim,  as  if  this 
word  of  liberty  were  the  last  word  of  wisest  men ; 
one  turns  to  those  men  whom  the  Book  mastered 
as  it  did  our  Puritan  ancestors,  whom  the  church 
mastered  as  it  did  Francis,  or  whom  Christ  mas- 
tered as  he  did  Paul,  and  feels  as  if  he  had  come 
within  the  atmosphere  of  religion  once  again.  He 
has  come  into  touch  again  with  men  who  really 
know  what  rehgion  is.  The  acknowledgment  of 
the  inadequacy  of  one's  own  intelligence,  the  being 
emptied  of  one's  own  will,  the  abasement  of  self, 
the  sacrifice  of  self,  these  things,  in  a  degree  which 
the  irreligious  cannot  understand,  are  among  the 
very  objects  of  the  profoundest  religious  desire. 
Toward  these  very  things  goes  out  the  cry  of  the 
deepest  religious  nature.     It  requires  poise  for  men 


THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY  33 1 

to  see  that  while  unquestionably  this  is  the  true 
attitude  of  men  toward  God,  yet  that  surrender  of 
which  we  have  spoken  is  too  great  a  surrender  for 
a  man  to  make  to  any  institution,  to  any  dogma,  or 
in  this  external  sense  to  any  book.  It  is  too  great 
a  surrender  for  a  man  to  make  to  any  of  his  fel- 
lows. It  is  too  great  a  surrender  to  be  made  to 
any  save  to  God  alone.  But  it  is  through  thoughts 
such  as  these  that  one  gets  the  sweep  of  what  men 
in  time  past  have  meant  by  religious  authority. 
We  must  reckon  candidly  with  that  which  they 
have  meant.  We  must  try  once  more,  and  from  a 
new  side,  to  see  the  relation  of  this  thing  which 
men  have  ordinarily  meant  by  religious  authority 
to  that  which  we  ourselves  mean. 

And  the  first  thing  which  strikes  us  when  we 
reflect  upon  the  authorities  which  have  been 
ascribed  to  the  church  and  to  the  Scripture  is 
this,  that  in  these  two  phrases,  the  authority  of 
the  Scripture  and  the  authority  of  the  church, 
the  word  authority  is  not  used  in  the  same  sense. 
It  has  been  one  of  the  unfortunate  consequences 
of  the  embittered  controversy  which  was  once 
waged  that  men  do  not  seem  to  have  perceived  this 
fact.  Surely  herein  Hes  one  of  the  reasons  why 
that  controversy,  as  between  the  authority  of  the 
Scripture  and  that  of  the  church,  never  came  to 
any  end.  Men  do  not  seem  generally  to  have 
noted  that  the  word  authority  does  not  bear  in  the 
one  of  these  connections  the  same  meaning  which 
it  bears  in  the  other. 


332  THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 

By  the  authority  of  the  church  we  understand 
the  binding  quality  which  men  concede  to  the 
deUverances  of  an  institution,  which  institution 
they  deem  to  be  in  some  way  inspired  of  God. 
Those  deUverances  must,  however,  be  perpetually 
interpreted  into  the  life  of  a  new  time.  They 
'  are  thus  interpreted  by  the  tradition,  and  ultimately 
by  living  men,  the  representatives  of  the  institution 
and  of  the  tradition.  The  interpretation  is  by  per- 
sons speaking  for  the  church.  By  the  authority 
of  Scripture,  on  the  other  hand,  has  been  under- 
stood the  binding  quality  which  men  concede  to 
the  statements  of  a  book,  which  book  they  deem  to 
be  inspired  of  God.  But  these  statements  of  the 
inspired  book  stand  also  in  need  of  perpetual 
interpretation  into  the  life  of  a  new  time.  The 
question  is  always,  Whose  is  the  authoritative 
interpretation  ? 

Men  have  said  that  the  Scripture  interprets 
itself.  This  is  true.  But  it  does  this  through 
the  judgment  of  him  who  determines  what  pas- 
sages are  to  be  understood  as  interpreting  other 
passages.  But  the  question  is.  With  whom  lies 
the  power  of  that  determination  ?  Does  a  man 
make  it  for  himself,  or  shall  some  other  make  it 
for  him.?  And  if  another  makes  this  determina- 
tion for  us,  what  is  his  authority  }  It  is  elusive, 
this  impersonal  authoritativeness,  this  external  au- 
thority of  Scripture.  We  can  never  get  at  it.  We 
always  seem  to  be  going  to  come  up  with  it,  but 
we  never  do.      Always  there  comes  between  us 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY  333 

and  this  sure  authority  the  veil  of  the  question, 
Whose  is  the  authoritative  interpretation  of  the 
Scripture  ?  Even  those  to  whose  apprehension 
the  Scripture  is  a  binding  letter,  an  original  infal- 
lible statement,  must  admit  that  they  never  get 
beyond  the  question  of  the  interpretation  of  that 
statement.  It  is  too  simple  to  say.  The  Scripture 
says  thus  and  thus.  What  does  it  mean  by  that 
which  it  thus  says  .-*  And  the  moment  we  have 
asked  that  question.  What  does  it  mean  ?  we  have 
passed  out  of  the  realm  of  the  external,  out  of  the 
sphere  of  the  letter  and  of  the  written  oracle,  into 
the  realm  of  the  inward  and  the  spiritual.  The 
only  question  is,  Whose  inward  and  spiritual  esti- 
mate is  to  prevail  ? 

To  this  question  there  are  only  two  possible 
answers.  Either  this  authoritative  interpretation 
of  Scripture  is  that  of  an  institution,  it  is  that  of  an 
historical  tradition,  it  is  that  of  a  priesthood,  it  is 
that  of  living  persons  whose  authority  is  derived 
from  the  fact  that  they  represent  that  institution 
and  tradition.  But  if  this  is  the  case,  then  we 
have  no  authority  except  that  of  the  church,  to 
which  belongs,  on  this  theory,  the  power  to  interpret 
Scripture  and  to  make  religious  deliverances  of  any 
sort.  Or  else,  on  the  other  hand,  we  must  say 
that  the  authoritative  interpretation  of  the  Scrip- 
ture is  that  which  vindicates  itself  as  true  in  the 
devout  and  learned  thought,  it  is  that  which  verifies 
itself  in  the  pure  conscience  and  the  humble  life 
of  the  individual  believer.     It  is  that  which  makes 


334  THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY 

itself  known  in  the  reason,  feeling,  will,  of  the 
individual  Christian.  It  is  that  which  commends 
itself  to  every  man's  conscience  in  the  sight  of 
God.  There  does  not  seem  to  be  any  escape  from 
this  dilemma.  And  this  last  is  the  true  and  invinci- 
ble position  of  Protestantism. 

But  men  have  not  always  had  the  courage  of 
this  position.  They  have  sometimes  arrayed 
against  this  brave  interpretation  of  the  individual 
mind  and  conscience  what  they  have  termed  the 
authority  of  Scripture.  They  have  not  always 
seen  that  they  therewith  only  use  a  phrase.  They 
have  not  perceived  that  in  refusing  at  least  can- 
didly to  weigh  a  new  opinion  of  the  meaning  of 
Scripture  which  may  be  offered  they  do  but  defer 
to  the  opinion  of  men  before  them,  or  of  men  about 
them,  or  merely  stand  by  their  own  previous 
opinion  as  to  what  the  Scripture  means.  When  we 
say  to  our  fellows,  The  Scripture  says  thus  and 
thus,  what  we  mean  is,  that  this  is  what  we  think  the 
Scripture  says.  We  think  it  most  honestly.  We 
may  long  thus  have  thought.  But  the  man  to  whom 
we  speak  may  long  and  honestly  have  thought  differ- 
ently. Or  in  Hght  of  new  facts  he  may  now  have 
come  to  think  differently.  His  new  facts  might 
well  lead  us  to  think  differently.  It  is  conceivable 
that  the  assertion.  The  Scripture  says  this  or 
that,  may  be  merely  covering  our  own  refusal  to 
think.  We  can  never  escape  this  personal  element. 
We  can  never  get  away  from  the  personal  responsi- 
bility of  our  own  moral  decisions  except  by  having 


THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY  335 

some  Other  persons  make  those  decisions  for  us. 
And  even  then  we  take  the  responsibiHty  of  decid- 
ing to  permit  these  other  persons  to  make  our 
decisions  for  us.  We  do  not  always  perceive  that 
this  last  may  be  the  very  gravest  possible  of  re- 
sponsibilities. 

It  has  been  well  said  that,  in  giving  up  to  almost 
any  extent  the  oracular  and  external  theory  of  the 
inspiration  and  authority  of  the  Scripture,  the 
Roman  Catholic  church  gives  up  very  little,  so 
long  as  it  retains  the  doctrine  of  its  own  infallibility 
and  the  exclusive  right  of  the  interpretation  of  the 
Scripture.  But  the  Protestant  body  in  questioning, 
even  ever  so  little,  the  verbal  infallibility  of  the 
Scripture,  in  making  itself  in  any  sense  the  judge 
of  that  before  which  it  yet  bows  as  its  own  arbiter 
and  judge,  renounces,  even  though  it  may  be  all 
unconsciously,  every  authority  in  matters  of  religion 
short  of  God  himself,  and  commits  itself  by  a  great 
act  of  faith  to  the  divine  principle  working  within 
humanity,  to  the  religious  instinct,  to  the  trained 
intelligence  and  the  faithful  heart  of  the  individual 
man,  as  the  sole  interpreter  of  Scripture  and  the 
only  register  of  the  influence  of  the  spirit  of  God 
upon  the  Hfe  of  man.  But  between  that  authority 
of  the  church  as  the  official  interpreter  of  the  Scrip- 
ture and  this  response  in  our  own  hearts  to  the  spirit 
which  is  in  the  Scripture  there  is  no  real  standing 
ground.  The  sooner  we  make  this  clear  to  ourselves 
the  sooner  we  shall  be  delivered  from  halfway  meas- 
ures which  are  worse  than  no  measures  at  all. 


336  THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

And  if  now  it  be  said  that  the  issue  of  all  this  is 
to  place  the  authority  of  reason  above  the  authority 
of  both  Scripture  and  church,  we  must  reply  that, 
in  the  sense  of  the  responsibility  of  which  we  have 
just  spoken,  this  is  unquestionably  true.  It  is  the 
collective  reason  which  claims  the  authoritative 
interpretation  of  Scripture  and  of  tradition  in  the 
church.  It  is  the  individual  reason  which  inter- 
prets that  Scripture  which  the  man  who  rejects 
the  authority  of  the  church  embraces  as  his 
authority.  And  yet,  this  statement  of  the  author- 
ity of  reason  is  a  very  misleading  one.  It  is  an 
entirely  misleading  statement  because  we  have 
thus  introduced  the  word  authority  in  still  a  third 
sense  into  this  unfortunate  discussion.  The  man 
who  coined  the  phrase,  authority  of  reason,  must 
surely  have  been  too  intelligent  to  imagine  that  his 
new  phrase  had  anything  more  than  a  rather  taking 
verbal  resemblance  to  the  other  two  phrases, 
authority  of  the  Scripture  and  authority  of  the 
church.  It  has  a  rather  captivating  sound  if  what 
one  seeks  is  an  epigrammatic  answer,  a  lucky  eva- 
sion of  the  pressure  of  the  other  two  authorities.  It 
was  just  the  kind  of  a  phrase  with  which  the  recal- 
citrant mood  of  the  end  of  the  eighteenth  century 
could  strut  and  grow  witty.  But  it  was  not  of  the 
sort  which  was  calculated  to  shed  great  light  in 
a  discussion  which  already  sorely  needed  light. 

For,  in  the  first  place,  we  must  note  that  it  is 
not  for  the  abstract  reason  alone,  it  is  for  the 
heart   and  conscience  as  well,   it  is  for  the  will 


THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY  337 

and  feeling  as  well  as  for  the  intelligence,  it  is 
for  the  whole  manhood  of  man  that  the  claim 
above  was  made  that  man  has  the  responsibility 
in  the  sight  of  God  of  judging  for  himself  the 
Christian  communion  and  of  interpreting  for  his 
own  soul  the  word  of  revelation,  precisely  as  he 
has  the  responsibility  for  the  following  out  of  any 
other  of  the  moral  purposes  of  existence.  It  is 
the  whole  life  of  the  man,  experience,  affection, 
resolution,  as  well  as  mere  intelligence,  which 
ought  to  be  gathered  into  the  forming  of  an  opin- 
ion of  that  which  touches  his  whole  Hfe.  It  is  only 
for  what  Kant  called  the  practical  reason  that  one 
can  make  so  great  a  claim.  And  one  recalls  Kant's 
own  contempt  for  mere  flippant  rationalizing  upon 
these  high  themes. 

And  furthermore,  we  must  add  that  it  is  the 
mind  and  Hfe  of  a  man  as  these  are  formed  upon 
the  principles  and  practice  of  religion  to  which 
alone  can  be  attributed  the  competence  to  judge 
religion.  It  is  the  mind  which  has  been  formed 
through  the  principles  and  practice  of  music,  or 
of  any  art,  to  whose  judgment  weight  can  be 
accorded  in  reference  to  matters  of  that  art.  It  is 
not  claimed  that  the  musical  or  artistic  intelligence 
is  of  a  sort  fundamentally  different  from  any  other. 
But  it  is  an  intelligence  which  has  been  formed 
upon  a  specific  experience,  and  which  derives  sen- 
sitiveness and  aptitude  and  specific  competence 
from  that  experience.  It  is  not  claimed  that  the 
religious  intelligence  is  miraculously  different  from 


338  THE   IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

any  other  intelligence.  It  is  not  even  claimed  that 
the  religious  experience  is  a  compartment  of  experi- 
ence shut  up  by  itself  and  cut  off  from  any  other. 
What  is  claimed  is  that  the  religious  experience  is 
a  real  and  specific  experience.  What  is  claimed  is 
that  those  only  who  have  had  some  genuine  reli- 
gious experience  have  religious  inteUigence  or  are 
competent  to  pass  any  serious  religious  judgment. 
What  is  claimed  is  that  only  as  the  intelligence 
is  informed  by  the  religious  experience  are  its 
judgments  concerning  religion  entitled  to  any 
consideration.  These  are  minor  matters,  how- 
ever, although  it  is  true  that  they  are  matters 
which  are  not  always  thought  of  by  those  who  use 
the  phrase,  the  authority  of  reason.  The  most 
serious  comment  is  one  which  is  yet  to  be  offered. 
It  is  a  misleading  use  of  language  to  call  that 
the  exercise  of  the  authority  of  reason  which  is 
really  nothing  in  the  world  but  the  courageous 
assumption  of  one  of  the  fundamental  and  inevi- 
table responsibilities  of  human  Hfe.  The  authority 
is  not  in  the  reason.  The  authority  is  in  the  truth 
which  it  is  the  responsibility  of  man's  reason  to 
know  and  to  judge.  The  authority  is  precisely 
where  we  previously  found  it,  namely,  in  the  true, 
in  the  good,  in  Christ  and  God,  in  the  last  analysis, 
in  God  alone.  But  the  responsibility  is  with  men 
to  know  the  truth  and  to  will  to  do  the  truth  which 
they  know.  That  responsibility  is  one  which  can 
by  no  possibility  be  taken  away  from  any  man. 
He  cannot  part  with  it  himself,  no  matter  how 


THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY  339 

much  he  may  desire  to  part  with  it.  The  phrase, 
authority  of  reason,  can  have  no  real  meaning  save 
this,  that  we  are  certainly  commanded,  as  in  the 
sight  of  God,  to  take  our  own  responsibilities  in 
religion,  and  not  to  try  to  lay  off  these  responsi- 
bilities upon  some  great  institution  or  upon  some 
group  of  our  fellows  in  whose  interpretation  of  the 
Scripture  we  concur,  or  upon  some  individual  in 
whose  leadership  for  any  reason  we  have  acquiesced. 
But  with  these  qualifications,  and  with  these 
attempts  to  determine  the  meaning  of  the  phrase, 
we  are  forced  to  say  that  the  responsibility  of 
reason  is  absolute.  It  is  true  that  the  Bible  is 
what  it  is,  no  matter  w^hat  a  man  may  think  of  it. 
But  it  is  also  true  that  the  Bible  is  to  that  man  just 
what  he  thinks  it  to  be.  It  cannot  be  anything  dif- 
ferent to  him  until  he  conceives  it  differently.  His 
beHef  concerning  it  is  the  determining  condition 
and  the  precise  hmitation  of  its  influence  upon 
him.  The  same  thing  is  true  as  regards  the 
church.  The  same  thing  is  true  concerning  doc- 
trine. It  is  true  even  as  toward  Christ  himself. 
We  can  never  get  away  from  this  fact,  either 
in  the  rehgious  relation  or  in  any  other  relation 
of  our  lives.  The  authority  of  reason,  if  men 
mean  by  that  phrase  the  thing  which  we  have  en- 
deavored to  describe,  —  the  responsibility  of  reason 
we  have  preferred  to  call  it,  —  is  absolute.  No 
man  escapes  that  responsibihty,  not  even  the  man 
who  has  delivered  himself  over  most  absolutely  to 
some  other  form  of  authority  in  order  to  escape  his 


340  THE    IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY 

responsibility.  He  exercised  his  reason  even  in 
determining  that  it  was  reasonable  for  him  to 
abdicate  his  reason.  He  used  his  judgment  even 
in  determining  to  trust  himself  henceforth  abso- 
lutely to  the  church  and  to  have  no  more  perplexi- 
ties of  private  judgment.  He  employed  his  reason 
in  determining  that  he  would  thereafter  not  employ 
it,  or  at  least  not  in  the  same  way  that  he  employs 
it  in  other  matters.  It  is  his  opinion  of  Scrip- 
ture which  leads  him  to  feel  that  what  he  takes  to 
be  its  sense  ought  to  supersede  all  his  other  opin- 
ions. But  he  used  his  reason  in  forming  that 
opinion  of  Scripture.  It  is  to  his  reason  that  con- 
stant appeal  is  made  in  order  to  sustain  that  opin- 
ion of  Scripture.  He  did  all  this  because  at  the 
time  he  deemed  it  a  reasonable  thing  to  do.  He 
continues  to  do  it  because  he  still  thinks  it  reason- 
able, no  matter  how  much  he  may  proclaim  that  he 
allows  himself  no  further  reasoning  about  it. 

But  if  these  things  are  true,  then  it  must  be  evi- 
dent how  strange  and  futile  are  the  attempts  which 
have  from  time  to  time,  and  at  great  pains,  been 
made  to  coordinate  these  three  authorities.  The 
attempt  is  to  show  that  the  Bible,  the  church,  and 
the  reason  are  authorities  in  some  way  concurrent, 
the  one  with  the  other.  They  are  somehow  joint 
authorities  in  human  life.  That  they  cannot  thus 
be  joint  divine  authorities  must  be  quite  obvious. 
They  are  not  even  any  two  of  them  authorities  in 
the  same  sense.  They  are  not  even  any  two  of 
them  divine  in  the  same  sense.     Nothing  but  con- 


THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY  34 1 

fusion  of  ideas  can  proceed  from  the  attempt  to 
deal  with  them  all  upon  the  same  plane,  or  to  make 
them  all  sharers,  part  and  part,  in  the  representa- 
tion of  the  divine  right  and  might  upon  the  earth. 
Authority  is  of  God  alone.  Jesus  himself  then 
most  commands  us  when  we  perceive  how  he  was 
himself  commanded.  We  are  then  most  conscious 
of  his  authority  when  we  realize  how  he  bowed  his 
whole  soul  to  the  authority  of  truth,  of  goodness, 
and  of  God  alone.  How  much  more,  then,  must 
the  company  of  his  followers  and  the  long  expe- 
rience and  august  tradition  of  their  institution  have 
authority  for  us  because  of  that  measure  of  the 
truth  which  they  enshrine,  of  the  goodness  which 
they  embody,  and  of  the  spirit  of  God  as  it  dwelt 
in  Jesus  which  they  reproduce.  In  so  far  as  they 
do  these  things  they  have  authority.  But  even  so, 
it  would  be  more  true  to  say  that  the  authority  is 
not  their  own.  In  so  far  as  they  do  not  enshrine 
the  truth,  embody  goodness,  and  incarnate  the 
spirit  of  Jesus,  they  have  no  authority  whatever. 
And  if  even  Jesus  himself  during  his  lifetime  made 
his  last  appeal  to  truth,  goodness,  and  to  God,  and 
left  men  with  the  responsibility  of  judging  that 
appeal,  how  much  more  must  those  shadowings  in 
the  Gospel  of  him  who  shadowed  forth  to  us  his 
Father,  God,  be  limited  to  the  same  quiet  appeal 
to  the  mind  and  heart  of  men.  How  much  more 
must  men,  each  man  for  himself,  be  left  to  the 
solemn  responsibility  of  that  use,  in  all  humility 
and  prayer,  of  the  right  reason,  which  men  cannot 


342  THE    IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY 

abdicate  if   they  would,   and   would   not   if   they 
could. 

Meantime  it  is  interesting  to  observe  that  as 
criticism  more  and  more  makes  untenable  the  old 
external  way  of  conceiving  the  authority  of  the 
Scripture,  there  is  manifest  a  definite  tendency, 
in  Protestant  quarters,  to  the  revival,  in  some 
form  of  it,  of  the  authority  of  the  church.  This 
recurrence  was  indeed  the  gist  of  Newman's  con- 
tention and  of  a  movement  inaugurated  now  fully 
two  generations  ago.  The  reason  intimated  above 
is  the  reason  which  at  the  inauguration  of  that 
movement  was  given  almost  in  those  very  words. 
This  recurrence  from  the  religion  of  Scripture 
apprehended  as  an  outward  authority,  which  is 
now  being  shaken,  to  the  religion  of  the  out- 
ward authority  of  the  church,  which  was  shaken 
four  hundred  years  ago,  shows,  it  would  seem, 
how  minds  once  really  imbued  with  the  religion 
of  authority  shrink  from  the  great  change  which 
is  passing  over  us.  This  recurrence  shows,  at  any 
rate,  how  much  closer  is  the  affinity  between  those 
two  forms  of  the  religion  of  outward  authority 
than  has  commonly  been  supposed.  Despite  the 
long  contest  between  these  two  forms  of  the 
religion  of  outward  authority,  despite  the  fact 
that  they  have  long  been  assumed  to  be  the 
antitheses  the  one  of  the  other,  nevertheless 
this  must  be  evident,  how  much  closer  is  their 
relation  the  one  to  the  other,  than  is  the  affinity 
of   either  with  that  religion  of  the  spirit  and  of 


THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY  343 

inwardness,  which  in  humble  trust  of  right  reason 
and  enlightened  conscience  dares  to  apprehend  its 
authority  as  primarily  that  of  the  God  working 
within  men,  and  deems  all  outward  authorities  as 
but  subordinate.  This  religion  of  the  authority 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  within  men,  when  we  shall 
have  advanced  to  it,  will  be  seen  to  separate  us 
from  some  forms  of  popular  Protestantism  by  a 
wider  interval  than  that  which  separated  Protes- 
tantism from  Catholicism  four  hundred  years  ago. 
But  this  religion  of  the  authority  of  the  good  and 
of  the  God  working  within  men  will  be  seen,  in 
the  light  of  such  a  study  as  that  which  in  these 
lectures  we  have  followed,  to  be  but  a  recurrence 
to  the  simplicity  of  that  religion  in  which  Jesus 
himself  lived,  and  which  the  Apostles  propounded 
at  the  first.  One  is  reminded  of  that  saying 
of  Goethe  :  "  Without  authority  mankind  has  not 
been  able  to  exist,  and  yet  it  brings  quite  as  much 
error  as  truth  with  it.  It  seizes  upon  and  perpetu- 
ates in  detail  that  which  should  have  been  suffered 
to  lapse.  It  rejects  and  permits  to  pass  that 
which  should  by  all  means  have  been  held  fast. 
And  it  is  on  the  whole  the  main  reason  why  hu- 
manity has  not  got  on  faster  than  it  has."  ^ 

And  yet  we  must  never  forget  that  which  often 
in  these  lectures  we  have  called  historic  right. 
We  must  never  overlook  the  fact  that  it  is  by 
the  adjustment  of  the  ideal  to  the  actual  that 
the  ideal  does  its  work  in  the  world.     It  is  never 

^  Spriiche  in  Prosa  :   Uber  Naiurwissenschaft,  2te  Abthlg. 


344  THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY 

as  pure  spirit  but  always  in  some  concrete  form, 
in  some  manifestation,  through  some  incarnation 
of  itself,  that  the  idea  and  spirit  of  things  sets 
itself  about  its  achievement  in  the  world.  It  will 
be  remembered  that  the  main  thesis  of  that  out- 
line of  the  history  of  doctrine  which  we  offered 
was  that  the  development  of  early  Christian  doc- 
trine was  the  slow  and  unconscious  fulfilment,  in 
some  part,  of  that  same  process  of  the  Helleniza- 
tion  of  the  substance  of  Christianity  of  which 
process  the  gnostic  movement  represented  the 
acute  stage.  The  church  did  not  achieve  its 
victory  over  those  who  sought  at  once  to  naturalize 
Christianity  in  the  world  of  ancient  culture  without 
making  concessions  which  ultimately  brought  the 
church  itself  far  toward  the  same  goal  which  those 
others  sought.  In  a  sense  the  progress  of  doctrine 
was  a  defection  from  the  simplicity  of  the  religious 
message  of  Jesus.  We  have  seen  that  some  things 
which  have  passed  for  authoritative  Christian  doc- 
trine are  clearly  Hellenic  in  their  origin.  The  pres- 
sure upon  the  merely  intellectual  elements  of  the 
faith,  the  undue  emphasis  upon  doctrine,  the  notion 
of  salvation  by  doctrine  was  certainly  not  Christian. 
And  yet  we  know  that  the  progress  of  doctrine  was 
inevitable.  Even  the  course  which  that  develop- 
ment took  is,  to  say  the  least,  historically  intel- 
ligible. It  would  hardly  be  too  much  to  say  that 
that  course  also  was  inevitable.  In  their  effort  to 
adjust  the  convictions  which  they  had  concerning 
Jesus  and  Christianity  to  the  opinions  which  they 


THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY  345 

held  concerning  all  things  besides,  the  early  Chris- 
tians were  not  only  fully  within  their  rights  but 
they  followed  an  intellectual  necessity.  And 
when  in  our  day  men  contend  for  what  they 
call  undogmatic  Christianity,  in  so  far  as  they 
use  their  language  accurately,  and  really  mean 
dogma  rather  than  doctrine,  we  may  rest  content. 
In  so  far  as  they  would  repudiate  a  Christianity 
which  lays  all  its  emphasis  upon  authoritative 
dogma,  we  may  be  satisfied.  But  in  so  far  as 
they  mean  a  Christianity  which  does  not  seek 
to  express  itself  in  doctrine  freshly  adjusted  to 
the  new  thoughts  of  our  own  time,  in  so  far, 
that  is,  as  they  would  make  religion  a  mere  matter 
of  feeling  and  empty  it  of  all  intellectual  content, 
in  so  far  as  they  deem  it  the  part  of  piety  to 
decHne  even  to  endeavor  to  adjust  the  convictions 
which  they  hold  concerning  Jesus  and  Christianity 
to  the  convictions  which  as  children  of  our  own 
age  we  must  hold  concerning  other  matters,  —  this 
would  seem  to  be  the  pathway  to  the  intellectual 
discrediting  of  the  Christian  religion  altogether. 

And  if  we  turn  from  doctrine  to  church  govern- 
ment, the  same  reasoning  applies.  The  Christian 
church  came  naturally  in  the  course  of  its  develop- 
ment to  the  monarchical  episcopate  which  culmi- 
nated logically  in  the  papacy  at  Rome.  That 
episcopate  and  papacy  were  in  their  own  place  a 
supreme  providence  of  God.  With  all  their  de- 
fects they  did  in  their  own  time  the  grandest  work. 
Without  some    such   strongly  centralized   govern- 


346  THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY 

ment  the  church  could  hardly  have  survived  the 
shock  of  the  overthrow  of  the  Roman  Empire  or 
the  invasions  of  the  barbarians,  it  could  scarcely 
have  trained  the  northern  races.  But  to  seek  to 
give  to  that  monarchical  system  a  sanction  as 
original  with  Christ  and  the  Apostles,  or  as  the 
final  intention  of  God,  is  quite  another  matter.  It 
does  not  need  that  sanction.  Its  authoritativeness 
was  in  its  usefulness.  Its  sanction  was  in  its  ex- 
pediency, under  certain  conditions  which  then  pre- 
vailed. For  that  matter,  the  Protestant  appeal  to 
Scripture  for  the  more  democratic  form  of  church 
government  rested,  to  say  the  least,  upon  misap- 
prehension. Those  simpler  forms  of  church  gov- 
ernment were  also  hardly  original  with  Christ  and 
the  Apostles  in  the  sense  in  which  that  Protestant 
claim  was  made.  These  also  have  no  authority 
save  in  the  grand  sense  of  their  expediency.  They 
also  have  no  sanction  save  in  their  usefulness  in 
times  and  places  to  which  they  are  adapted,  their 
usefulness  in  the  making  of  men  in  the  image  of 
Christ,  and  in  the  doing  of  work  effectively  in 
Christ's  name. 

Whether,  in  the  conditions  of  modern  society,  a 
church  government  more  centralized  than  that 
which  has  generally  prevailed  in  the  high  Protes- 
tant bodies  might  not  be  in  a  true  way  expedient, 
is  a  question  most  gravely  to  be  debated.  As- 
suredly these  bodies  feel  the  need  of  an  increase 
in  their  efficiency.  They  need  to  be  brought  into 
line  in  some  way  with  the  great  principle  of  com- 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY  347 

bination  which  obtains  about  us  in  all  other  de- 
partments of  life.  But  this  centraHzation  and 
combination  can  certainly  be  brought  to  pass  with- 
out finding  its  sanction  in  any  unhistorical  assump- 
tion. It  would  have  abundant  sanction  in  its 
utility,  its  holy  adaptation  to  the  new  needs  of  the 
new  time.  That  mere  sanction  of  utiHty  would 
be  something  far  more  divine  and  more  authorita- 
tive than  would  apostolicity,  even  if  we  could  re- 
cover the  precise  order  of  the  churches  of  the 
apostolic  age,  if  meantime  it  should  be  proved  that 
the  apostolic  order,  when  strictly  imitated,  was 
inoperative  in  the  real  emergencies  and  inefficient 
to  the  real  purposes  of  church  life  in  our  day. 
And  such  modifications  and  adjustments  of  church 
government  can  certainly  be  achieved  without  the 
sacrifice  of  that  principle  of  individual  initiative 
and  of  universal  responsibility  which  has  been  the 
secret  of  the  Protestant  type  of  piety,  and  indeed 
of  so  much  of  the  progress  of  the  modern  world. 

The  thesis  which  lay  at  the  basis  of  our  discus- 
sion of  church  government  is  in  one  sense  entirely 
correct.  The  nature  of  the  church,  apprehended 
as  a  spiritual  body  and  exerting  only  a  spiritual 
force,  is  in  contradiction  to  the  very  conception  of 
law  and  government  based  upon  rights  and  powers, 
in  the  sense  in  which  these  words  have  always 
been  understood  among  men.  And  yet,  the  evolu- 
tion of  church  government  is  not  only  explicable, 
it  was  justifiable.  We  should  hardly  go  too  far  if 
we  should   say  that  even  the  course  which  that 


348  THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 

evolution  took  was  inevitable.  The  only  thing 
which  is  not  justifiable  is  that  under  the  assertion 
of  its  sacred  origin  that  government  should  refuse 
to  advance  to  those  further  steps  in  its  own  evolu- 
tion which  the  adaptations  to  the  life  of  a  new  time 
suggest.  In  itself,  the  contention  against  any  con- 
crete form  of  church  government  to  which  we 
above  alluded  is  entirely  just,  and  the  organizations 
which  the  Christian  body  has  inherited  are  a  defec- 
tion from  the  simplicity  of  Christ.  But  this  con- 
sideration is  put  forth  as  if  there  were  something 
distinctively  Christian  in  our  having  no  effective 
organization,  and  that,  in  face  of  a  work  in  the 
world  so  vast  and  complex  that  it  demands  the  most 
efficient  organization  for  its  accomplishment  —  a 
work  which  we  own  that  we  are  under  sacred  obliga- 
tion to  endeavor  to  accomplish.  But  is  not  this,  after 
all,  the  same  question  over  again  which  we  asked 
ourselves  concerning  the  Scriptures  }  Admit  that 
it  is  only  a  small  part  of  the  greatness  of  Jesus  which 
has  been  preserved  to  us  in  the  Gospels,  and  that 
even  that  part  is  seen  through  the  mist  of  the 
inevitable  apprehensions  and  misapprehensions  of 
the  witnesses.  Admit  that  much  is  here  crystallized, 
set  hard  and  fast,  which  in  Jesus  was  all  fluid  and 
free.  Admit  that  much  has  here  become  letter,  or 
at  least  has  been  used  by  men  as  a  binding  letter, 
which  was  in  him  pure  spirit.  Admit  that  the  wor- 
ship of  the  letter  which  has  sometimes  prevailed, 
and  not  least  among  those  most  devout,  could 
hardly  have  found  favor  with  him  who  said,  "  The 


THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY  349 

words  that  I  speak  unto  you,  they  are  spirit  and 
they  are  life,"  ^  or  with  his  Apostle  who  declared, 
"  The  letter  killeth,  it  is  the  spirit  which  givethlife."^ 
Admit  that  in  this  sense  the  Scripture  itself  is  a 
descent  from  Jesus.  Yet  at  this  distance  should  we 
know  with  certainty  anything  concerning  Jesus, 
save  for  this  deposit  of  something,  at  least,  of  his 
spirit  in  the  Gospels  and  again  in  the  Epistles, 
and  indeed  save  also  for  the  unique  position  and 
authority  which  these  writings  came  to  hold  in  the 
Christian  church  ? 

So  is  it  in  regard  to  that  other  question.  We 
may  admit  that  the  Christian  church  ought 
never  to  be  moved  save  by  spiritual  impulse  and 
should  put  forth  nothing  but  spiritual  influence. 
We  must  own  the  evils,  almost  beyond  belief,  which 
have  come  with  the  notion  that  the  church  of  God 
was  a  sort  of  state  among  men,  operating  with  all 
the  means  of  law  and  force  with  which  other 
states  must  operate.  But  the  vagaries  of  that 
other  theory,  the  monstrosities  which  have  been 
perpetrated  under  the  theory  that  men  are  always 
and  only  under  the  impulse  of  the  Holy  Ghost  — 
these  also  are  painfully  evident.  The  folly  and 
atrocities  committed  by  these  men  also  are  so  ob- 
vious that  we  are  constrained  to  say  that  it  is  of  the 
guidance  of  God  that  the  impulse  which  Christ  gave 
has,  in  this  as  in  all  other  respects,  been  taken 
up  into  the  common  forms  of  human  society  and 
shaped  these  forms  of  society  to  itself  as  best  it 

1  John  vi.  63.  *  2  Corinthians  iii.  6. 


350  THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

could.  We  may  concede  that  that  impulse  has 
operated  in  the  full  stream  of  human  history, 
within  the  limits  of  human  reason  and  experience, 
and,  inevitably  also,  within  the  limits  of  human 
error  and  passion.  But  we  may  safely  assert  that, 
even  under  shapes  defective,  sometimes  sadly 
human,  which  have  themselves  been  changed  from 
age  to  age,  yet  this  divine  impulse  has  thus  trans- 
formed society  as  it  could  not  have  done  in  any 
other  way. 

It  was  not  unnatural  that  the  men  of  four  hun- 
dred years  ago  should  have  set  up  against  the  au- 
thority of  the  church  an  authority  of  the  Scripture, 
which  they  soon  came  to  apprehend  in  an  almost 
equally  external  way.  They  did  not  perceive  that 
the  devout  reasoning  and  the  light  of  history 
which  they  so  successfully  applied  to  the  first 
would  one  day  have  their  way  also  with  the 
second.  No  one  can  doubt  that  it  is  a  nobler  and 
more  spiritual  conception  of  the  church  which  has 
arisen  out  of  that  great  discussion.  In  like  man- 
ner no  one  need  fear  but  that  it  is  a  nobler,  a  more 
inward  and  spiritual  view  of  the  authority  of  Scrip- 
ture which  is  emerging  out  of  the  discussion  which 
we  are  now  passing  through.  The  disposition  to 
deny  the  authority  of  Scripture  altogether,  in  the 
first  rush  of  the  new  historic  sense  concerning  the 
Scripture,  is  only  the  parallel  of  that  extreme  to 
which  men  went  after  the  Reformation,  in  which 
all  feeling  for  the  communion  of  the  saints,  all 
interest  in  the  fellowship  of  believers,  seemed  for 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY  35  I 

the  time  to  be  lost.  Men  seemed  to  lose  all  sense 
of  the  supreme  worth  of  the  common  Christian 
experience  and  all  consciousness  of  relation  to 
the  historic  organism  of  the  Christian  life.  And 
yet  without  this  relation  the  individualism  for 
which  the  Reformers  stood  has  always  been  a 
feeble  and  even  a  dangerous  thing. 

The  great  difference  between  the  two  situations 
lies  in  this.  That  old  revolt  against  the  external 
authority  of  the  church  was  complicated  with  all 
sorts  of  political  considerations.  The  new  birth 
of  civil  liberty  in  modern  times  bears  the  most  in- 
timate relation  to  that  great  awakening  of  con- 
science which  the  Reformation  was.  The  triumph 
of  democracy  in  the  state  is  only  one  aspect  of 
that  emphasis  upon  the  rights  and  duties  of  the 
individual  man  in  the  sight  of  God  which  Protes- 
tantism has  always  proclaimed.  It  is  no  wonder 
if  in  the  passions  of  that  political  revolt  the  sense 
of  the  spiritual  communion  also  was  lost.  For  the 
authority  of  the  church,  as  the  Middle  Age  under- 
stood it,  was  a  political  tyranny  of  the  most  mun- 
dane sort.  It  differed  from  the  other  mundane 
tyrannies  only  in  that  it  claimed  supramundane 
sanctions  for  its  tyranny.  It  is  no  wonder  if,  in 
the  bitterness  of  that  conflict,  the  sense  for  the 
community  of  the  Christian  life  and  of  the  valid- 
ity and  authority  of  the  universal  Christian  experi- 
ence was  forfeited.  But  nothing  is  more  obvious 
than  the  endeavor  in  the  whole  realm  of  Protes- 
tantism to-day  to  regain  that  feeling  for  the  church 


352 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 


which  was  then  in  large  measure  scornfully  sacri- 
ficed. 

The  issue  in  the  modern  struggle  concerning 
the  authority  of  Scripture  is  quite  different.  It  is 
not  liberty  of  thought  which,  for  any  large  num- 
ber of  persons,  is  involved  in  the  modern  struggle 
touching  the  authority  of  Scripture,  as  in  those 
old  days  political  liberty  was  involved  in  the  strug- 
gle against  the  authority  of  the  church.  That  lib- 
erty of  thought  has  been  already  achieved.  It  was 
achieved,  in  a  measure,  as  part  and  parcel  of  that 
other  movement  in  the  Renaissance  and  Reforma- 
tion. It  was  in  still  larger  part  the  work  of  the 
much  mahgned  eighteenth  century,  and  is  the  title 
of  that  century  to  glory.  In  fact,  by  the  end  of 
that  century  the  rationahst  movement  had  carried 
liberty  of  thought  as  far  as  the  French  Revolution 
endeavored  to  carry  liberty  of  life.  The  history 
of  culture  of  the  nineteenth  century  has,  indeed, 
been  one  of  marvellous  advance.  But  it  has  been 
also  in  no  small  degree  a  history  of  the  recovery 
of  much  that  was  then  in  flippant  arrogance,  in 
the  name  of  reason,  thrown  away. 

The  question  in  debate  concerning  the  author- 
ity of  Scripture  is  not  now  whether  science  shall 
be  free ;  whether  the  study  of  history  shall  be  un- 
trammelled ;  whether  the  whole  philosophy  of  the 
universe  shall  be  readjusted  to  the  facts,  innu- 
merable and  of  immeasurable  significance,  which, 
mainly  within  the  last  two  generations,  have  come 
within  our  ken.     That  readjustment  is  going  on 


THE    IDEA   OF    AUTHORITY  353 

irresistibly  all  about  us.  It  is  of  no  use  whatever 
to  set  up  against  it  the  barriers  of  an  external 
authority,  scriptural  or  of  any  other  sort.  That 
movement  is  going  on,  if  we  may  so  say,  by  a  sort 
of  authoritativeness  of  its  own.  It  is  going  on  by 
the  authority  of  that  amount  of  truth  which,  de- 
spite mistakes  and  partial  apprehensions  and  im- 
perfect notions,  is  yet  gradually  being  discovered. 
It  is  going  on  by  the  authority  of  that  amount  of 
goodness  which,  despite  all  admixtures  with  the 
evil,  does,  nevertheless,  in  individual  hearts  and 
in  society,  get  itself  done.  And  with  unerring 
instinct,  men  feel  that  the  authoritativeness  of  that 
truth  which  is  discovered  and  of  that  goodness 
which  is  achieved  is  the  authority  of  God  Himself. 
Men  are  therefore  bewildered  if,  when  they 
would  follow  this  authority  of  indubitable  scien- 
tific truth  and  obvious  social  goodness,  they  feel 
themselves  checked  by  that  which  is  urged  upon 
them  from  other  quarters  under  the  name  of  the 
authority  of  God  in  Scripture,  church,  or  dogma. 
This  latter  authority  seems  often  to  demand  an 
attitude  and  to  enforce  a  method  different  from 
that  to  which  they  are  used  in  the  search  for  other 
truth.  It  is  sometimes  alleged  in  defence  of 
statements  which  are  in  plain  contravention  of 
scientific  judgments  which  men  would  otherwise 
hold,  and  of  facts  which  they  deem  themselves 
to  know.  The  bewilderment  is  melancholy.  The 
consequences  of  this  seeming  opposition  are  dis- 
astrous for  religious  life  and  intelligence.     And  all 

2  A 


354  THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 

the  while  we  clearly  perceive  that  the  opposition 
is  only  seeming,  and  the  conflict  is  due  but  to  mis- 
understanding. The  misunderstanding  is  bound 
to  pass  away.  But  one  would  like  to  help  it  to 
pass  more  quickly.  All  truth  is  one.  All  good- 
ness is  one.  God  is  the  authority  of  both.  The 
question  is  not  of  liberty  of  thought.  The  liberty 
of  thought  is  here. 

The  question  is  whether  within  the  universe  of 
things,  as  we  now  see  them,  whether  within  the 
world  of  thoughts  such  as  those  which  the  mod- 
ern man  must  hold,  the  Scripture  with  its  inspira- 
tion and  authority  can  find  a  place.  The  question 
is  whether,  momentarily,  these  inestimably  precious 
influences  may  not  lose  their  power.  We  must 
speak  of  such  loss  as  but  a  momentary  one.  For 
any  one  who  views  the  long  course  of  history  knows 
how  often  the  mode  of  apprehension  of  the  Scrip- 
ture and  of  its  inspiration  and  authority  has  changed 
already,  and  still  the  central  thing  to  be  appre- 
hended has  remained  the  same  and  gone  on  to  do 
new  and  larger  work.  Something  which  in  time 
past  men  have  described  as  revelation  and  inspira- 
tion, something  which  we  ourselves  acknowledge 
as  authoritative,  is  felt  by  all  who  frankly  come 
under  the  influence  particularly  of  the  New  Tes- 
tament Scripture.  The  question  is  whether  these 
words  can  be  divested  of  associations  and  assump- 
tions which  to-day  hinder  rather  than  help  the 
apprehension  of  the  thing  which  they  seek  to 
describe.     The  question  is  whether  these  facts  of 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY  355 

revelation  and  inspiration,  can  be  so  put  before 
men  that  they  will  appear  in  perfect  consonance 
with  all  the  other  facts  which  the  men  know  and 
in  harmony  with  all  the  ideas  which  they  entertain 
concerning  things  besides  the  Scripture.  The  ques- 
tion is  whether  men  can  be  made  to  see  that  these 
authorities,  that  of  the  Scripture,  and  in  their 
measure  those  of  doctrine  and  of  church  as  well, 
are  simply  the  authority  of  truth  and  goodness,  are 
merely  the  authority  of  the  spirit  of  Christ  and 
of  God  which  are  here  enshrined.  The  question 
is  whether  men  can  be  led  to  see  that  these  all 
claim  the  recognition  of  their  free  intelligence  and 
the  obedience  of  their  hearts  with  that  same  im- 
periousness,  and  with  no  other,  than  that  with 
which  truth  and  duty  claim  men  everywhere. 

Because,  the  moment  this  takes  place,  the  miser- 
able misunderstanding  of  which  we  spoke  must 
vanish.  And  this  is  the  thing  which  is  taking  place 
all  about  us.  This  is  the  secret  of  that  interest  in 
the  Scripture  as  literature  and  history,  which  is 
now  so  widely  felt  among  us.  It  touches,  not 
merely  the  devoutest  circle  in  our  churches,  but 
is  taking  full  possession  of  the  universities.  It 
works  such  a  revolution  that  it  makes  some  of 
those  who  have  the  thing  most  at  heart  to  draw 
back  a  Httle.  This  is  the  thing  which  has 
come  to  some  of  the  most  learned  and  fearless 
of  investigators  in  this  field.  It  is  the  recovery 
of  the  sense  of  the  authoritativeness  of  Scripture, 
and  particularly  of    that  of   the  New  Testament. 


356  THE   IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

It  is  the  reassertion  of  this  authority  in  their  own 
lives,  and  the  regaining  of  enthusiasm  on  their  part 
for  the  presentation  of  their  thought  concerning 
Scripture  in  such  fashion  that  the  Scripture  may 
gain  control  of  the  lives  of  others.  Men  are  not  gen- 
erally in  revolt  against  the  authority  of  Scripture. 
It  is  not  that  they  repudiate  the  notion  of  revela- 
tion and  disbelieve  in  inspiration.  This  is  not  the 
case  even  with  all  of  those  who  say  that  they  do 
thus  disbelieve.  But  they  are  under  the  intellec- 
tual necessity  of  understanding  the  authority  of 
Scripture  in  the  same  way  that  they  understand 
every  other  authority.  These  facts  of  revelation 
and  of  inspiration  must  needs  be  brought  into  har- 
monious relation  with  all  other  facts.  A  man's  view 
of  God's  presence  and  power,  of  God's  working  in 
these  things,  must  needs  be  coherent  with  his  view 
of  God's  presence  and  power,  and  of  God's  v/ork- 
ing  in  all  things  besides.  It  is  only  a  period  of 
failure  of  adjustment  which  we  have  been  passing 
through.  The  cause  of  religion  has  lagged  behind 
in  the  process  of  adjustment. 

And  if  we  should  ask  why  just  that  cause  upon 
which,  of  all  causes,  there  would  seem  to  devolve  a 
sacred  privilege  of  leadership  should  so  often  lag 
behind,  and  need  to  be  forced  forward  almost 
against  its  will  and  by  pressure  seemingly  from 
without  itself,  we  should  have  to  answer  somewhat 
thus.  In  the  first  place  we  must  allow  ourselves 
no  narrow  definition  of  religion.  The  forces  of 
good  and  of  truth  are  the  forces  of  God,  wherever 


THE   IDEA   OF   AUTHORITY  357 

and  however  they  are  manifest,  and  even  though 
they  may  not  call  themselves  by  His  name  or  deem 
that   they  have  anything   to   do  with   His  cause. 
The  Hfe  of  man  is  one.     The  inspiration  of  God  is 
for  man's  whole  life.      The  revelation  comes  to 
men  out  of  every  aspect  and  relation  of  their  Hves. 
The  whole   of  human  existence   is   the    scope   of 
God's  guidance  and  the  field  of  man's  obedience, 
even  when  men  have  no  idea  that  it  is  God  whom 
they  obey.     It  is  a  constant  phenomenon   in  the 
history   of   religion   that    some   small  function  of 
religion,   worship  for  example,  which   can  surely 
have   no    purpose  save  as   a  preparation  of    the 
hearts  of  men  for  the  true  religion  of  a  noble  life, 
is  yet   put    forward  as  if    it   were    the  whole    of 
religion.      It  is   a  constant  phenomenon  that  the 
truth  which  is  taught  in  churches  is  put  forth  as 
if  it  alone  were  holy  and  divine  truth;  that  the  life 
which  is  lived  in  the  name  of  Christ  is  assumed  to 
be  the  only  life  which  is    lived   in   the    spirit   of 
Christ;    and  that  the  deeds  which  are  done,  we 
will   say,  under  the  impulse    of   charity,  are  the 
only  deeds  which  men  call  good  or  deem  to  have 
been  done  for  God.      It    is  a  constant  phenome- 
non   in    the    history   of   religion   that   men   come 
to  confound  the  mere  deposit  of  authority  —  Scrip- 
ture, doctrine,  organization,  whatever  it  may  be — 
with  the  creative  impulse  of  God,  some  small  part 
of  which  impulse  is  here  deposited.     They  assign 
to  these  an  authority  which  belongs  to  Him  alone. 
They  turn  that  which  is  the  very  record  of  an  inspi- 


358  THE    IDEA    OF   AUTHORITY 

ration  given  to  men  in  time  past  into  a  hindrance 
and  preventive  of  like  inspiration  in  the  time  to 
come.  Then,  indeed,  that  cause  of  which  we  should 
expect  the  greatest  breadth  and  reality  becomes  the 
cause  of  the  utmost  narrowness  and  the  centre  of 
all  that  is  artificial.  Then,  indeed,  that  force  of 
which  we  should  expect  leadership  becomes  the 
most  conservative  of  all  forces,  and  claims  the  sanc- 
tion of  its  divineness  for  being  so  conservative  as 
it  is.  It  is  then  the  work  of  that  God  who  works 
outside  of  the  accepted  forms,  it  is  then  the  work 
of  the  men  who  obey  God  outside  of  the  accepted 
forms,  to  furnish  from  without,  that  solemn  impulse 
of  religion  which  the  current  forms  seem  not  pre- 
pared to  furnish  from  within. 

We  may  remind  ourselves  that  in  the  period 
before  the  Reformation  the  current  religion  seemed 
to  have  aUied  itself  with  every  form  of  civil  tyranny 
and  to  have  degenerated  into  a  civil  tyranny  itself. 
Yet  the  primitive  impulse  of  that  great  revolt 
was  the  valuation  of  the  individual  which  the 
Gospel  had  taught.  When  once  that  revolt  was 
inaugurated,  it  was  the  fact  that  the  religious  and 
moral  enthusiasm  assumed  its  control  which  made 
of  the  rise  of  the  states  of  Northern  Germany  and 
of  the  Puritan  Commonwealth  in  England  the 
earnest  and  beneficent  movement  that  it  was.  It 
was  the  religious  and  moral  enthusiasm  in  control 
of  that  revolt  which  made  of  it  the  permanent  and 
constructive  movement  which  it  was.  It  was  the 
absence  of   that   religious  enthusiasm    and    sense 


THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY  359 

of  moral  responsibility  in  the  French  Revolution 
which  made  of  it  the  disappointing  and  destructive 
movement  that  it  was. 

We  may  remind  ourselves  that  at  the  end  of  the 
eighteenth  century  the  forms  of  current  religion 
seemed  everywhere  arrayed  against  the  cause  of 
freedom  of  thought ;  and  we  have  not  even  yet 
passed  altogether  beyond  the  state  of  things  in 
which  the  church  and  the  Scripture  are  deemed  by 
some  to  be  the  enemies  of  free  thought.  And  yet 
the  religious  and  moral  enthusiasm,  the  sense  of 
the  sacred  responsibility  of  this  freedom  of  life  and 
thought  which  we  have  achieved,  —  this,  and  this 
alone  apparently,  can  save  us  now  from  social 
issues  as  disastrous  as  was  the  civil  experiment  in 
France  one  hundred  years  ago.  The  overturning 
of  society  at  the  hands  of  men  whose  point  of  view 
is  that  of  their  economic  grievances  seems  some- 
times as  imminent  as  did  that  assault  upon  privi- 
lege in  the  name  of  political  equality.  But  there 
is  this  difference.  The  apprehension  of  social 
betterment  as  the  field  for  moral  enthusiasm  and 
for  religious  endeavor,  the  deepening  sense  of  the 
sacred  responsibility  of  freedom,  of  the  obhgation 
of  rank,  of  the  accountability  of  wealth,  of  the 
privilege  of  power  —  these  things  are  visible  all 
about  us.  These  apprehensions  unite  all  parties. 
They  are  the  working  ideas  of  the  generation, 
the  most  encouraging  signs  of  the  time. 

This  moral  enthusiasm,  this  religious  consecra- 
tion to  a  new  and  great  task,  draws  its  inspiration, 


360  THE    IDEA    OF    AUTHORITY 

as  such  enthusiasms  now  for  two  thousand  years 
have  done,  from  the  revelation  of  God  and  the 
memorials  of  Jesus  Christ.  Nothing  is  more  not- 
able than  is  the  eagerness  with  which  men  turn  to 
the  New  Testament  to  discover  what  was  the  social 
teaching  of  Jesus.  Nothing  is  more  salient  than 
the  reverence  of  men  everywhere  in  our  day  for 
Jesus.  Nothing  is  more  marked  than  is  their 
acknowledgment  of  his  authority.  That  acknowl- 
edgment of  his  authority  rests  indeed  upon  grounds 
which  are  widely  different  from  the  dogmatic  and 
ecclesiastical  ones.  It  rests  upon  ethical  grounds. 
It  rests  upon  so  simple  a  foundation  as  this,  that 
the  men  recognize  in  Jesus  of  Nazareth  one  who 
spoke  the  truth  and  who  in  love  did  that  which  was 
good.  Many  men  outside  of  the  church  have  this 
sense  of  the  highest  authority,  the  very  authority 
of  God  Himself,  in  the  man  Jesus  Christ. 

On  the  other  hand  there  are  many  of  us  who  are 
heartily  identified  with  the  Christian  church  and 
have  the  deepest  reverence  for  the  New  Testament 
Scripture,  who  also  on  our  part  perceive  that  our 
real  and  ultimate  authority  is  God  in  Jesus  Christ. 
In  the  faith  of  the  God  who  reveals  Himself 
within  men,  and  in  the  work  of  the  new  time  which 
is  to  transform  both  church  and  world,  we  would 
join  hands  with  the  men  of  whom  we  spoke.  The 
authority  which  they  gladly  acknowledge  is  the 
very  authority  which  we  claim,  —  the  eternal  au- 
thority of  truth  and  goodness,  of  God  himself,  par- 
ticularly as  these  are  manifest  to  us  in  Jesus  Christ. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Accusations  against  Christians,  86. 

Acts  of  the  Apostles,  73  ff. 

Acts,  Apocryphal,  75. 

Acts  of  Martyrs  of  Scili,  97. 

Alexandrine  Canon  of  New  Testa- 
ment, 113,  167. 

Allegorical  interpretation,  116. 

Alogoi  reject  Apocalypse,  58,  142, 

Ambrose,  158,  277. 

Amphilochius,  183. 

Apocalypse  of  John,  57  ff. ;  oppo- 
sition to,  142  ff. ;  in  Dionysius 
of  Alexandria,  187;  in  Eusebius, 
178,  181 ;  final  canonization  of, 
182,  184. 

Apocalypse  of  Peter,  59. 

Apocalyptic  literature,  outside  of 
the  Old  Testament,  57. 

Apocrypha,  meaning  of  word,  70; 
of  Old  Testament,  157 ;  of  New 
Testament,  157. 

Apocr}'phal  Acts,  75. 

Apocryphal  Gospels,  two  classes, 
70. 

Apollos,  50,  198. 

Apologies,  character  of,  82  f. 

Apologists,  36  ff.,  81  f.;  task  of  the, 
81;  arguments  of,  84;  attitude 
to  philosophy,  83 ;  and  the  Old 
Testament,  84 ;  and  the  New 
Testament  writings,  85,  135. 

Apostles,  28  ff. ;  meaning  of  word, 
44 ;  support  of,  237 ;  Protestant 
appeal  to,  257, 

Apostles'  Creed,  275,  296,  298,  305. 

Apostles'  "  memorials  "  concerning 
Jesus,  in  Justin,  88. 

Apostolic  authorship  of  New  Tes- 
tament books,  29  f. ;  literature  as 


Scripture,  33 ;  tradition  of  doc- 
trine, 298. 

Apostolic  Canons,  183. 

Apostolic  Constitutions,  187. 

Apostolic  succession,  129. 

Apostolicity,  in  Irenaeus,  130;  in 
Eusebius,  179. 

Aristides,  95. 

Athanasius,  life  and  works,  184  f. ; 
Canon  of,  185. 

Athenagoras,  96. 

Augustine,  life  and  works,  158  f. ; 
Canon  of,  160. 

Authority,  of  Jesus,  10,  21,  312, 360 ; 
of  Apostles,  221;  of  apostoUc 
writings,  29  f. ;  canonical,  7,  13 ; 
of  Scripture,  7,  217,  332,  340  f., 
352,359;  of  the  Church,  217,  332, 
340  f.,  342,  351;  of  reason,  336  f.; 
personal,  317;  religion  of,  324, 
328  f. 

Baptismal  symbol,  Roman,  275, 
294.  295,  303. 

Barnabas,  Epistle  of,  53. 

Bellarmine,  Cardinal,  195. 

Beza,  199. 

Bishops,  45;  in  early  church,  240; 
ordained  by  Apostles,  243  ;  more 
than  one  in  local  community, 
241,  246 ;  choice  of,  241 ;  and 
charity,  246;  and  the  Eucharist, 
246;  power  of,  241,  247  f., 
252;  priestly  character  of,  251; 
sins  of,  253;  and  the  Canon, 
177. 

Book  of  the  Sacrament  and  the 
Canon,  187. 

Book-religion,  19. 


363 


3^4 


INDEX 


Book  of  the  Revelation  (see  Apoc- 
alypse), 56. 
Buddhism  and  canonization,  13. 
Byzantium,  173. 

Caius,  Roman  presbyter,  143. 
Cajetan,  Cardinal,  192. 

Calvin,  199. 

Canon,  definition  of,  10. 

Canon  of  New  Testament,  outline 
of,  33>  42,  138,  153  f. ;  authority 
of,  14;  decrees  concerning,  26, 
33,  160  f. ;  Alexandrine  Canon, 
167;  Syrian,  189. 

Canon  of  Old  Testament,  5 ;  Alex- 
andrine, 157;  Palestinian,  157. 

Canonization,  beginnings  of,  15, 
25 ;  chronology  of,  32  f. ;  forces 
and  motives  of,  124  ff. ;  a  con- 
servative process,  26,  141  ;  in 
other  religions,  11  f. 

Carlstadt,  199. 

Catholic  church,  rise  of,  35,  169. 

Catholic  Epistles,  51 ;  final  canoni- 
zation of,  183. 

Celsus,  97  f. 

Charity,  funds  for,  236. 

Chemnitz,  194  f. 

Chiliasm,  143. 

Christ,  second  coming  of,  46. 

Christian  church,  and  the  Old 
Testament,  5,  19;  and  Paul's 
letters,  27;  all  functions  of, 
deemed  inspired,  234;  as  out- 
ward organization,  249. 

Christian  doctrine,  earliest,  277  f. 

Christian  life,  earliest  types  of,  37. 

Christian  literature,  outside  of 
Canon,  classified,  34  ff. 

Christianity,  literary  impulse  for- 
eign to,  16;  a  book-religion,  19; 
as  revealed  philosophy,  269; 
transformation  of,  at  end  of  sec- 
ond century,  168  ff . ;  in  fourth 
century,  169  ff. ;  secularization 
of,  289  f. 

Christians,  social  status  of  earliest, 

37.  81. 


Chrysostom,  184. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  life  and 
works,  113;  Canon  of,  114  f. 

Clement  of  Rome,  First  Epistle,  52 ; 
allusions  to  Paul,  25 ;  concerning 
bishops,  243  f. ;  his  Canon,  53 ; 
Second  Epistle,  tj. 

Confession,  as  bond  of  union  of 
churcli,  295. 

Confucianism  and  canonization,  13. 

Constantine,  conversion  of,  168  f. ; 
motives,  171. 

Corinthians,  Epistles  to,  of  Paul, 
49,  75  ;  of  Clement,  52. 

Councils  touching  the  Canon,  Lao- 
dicea,  161 ;  Carthage,  160 ;  Flor- 
ence, 194;  Trent,  194;  Vatican, 

195- 
Creed,  Apostles',  275,  296,  298,  305. 
Creeds,  liturgical,  294. 
Cyprian,  his  life  and  works,  151  f.; 

church    government,    249;    his 

Canon,  152. 
Cyril  of  Jerusalem,  183. 

Damasus,  160. 

Daniel,  Book  of,  57. 

Deacons,  237. 

Decrees  concerning  Canon,  26, 
118;  under  Augustine,  160;  of 
Gelasius,  162;  of  Hormisdas, 
162 ;  of  Laodicea,  161 ;  of  Car- 
thage, 160;  of  Trent,  194;  of 
Vatican  Council,  195. 

Diaspora,  224. 

Diatessaron,  71,  91  ff. 

Didache,  75. 

Diocletian,  171  ff. 

Dionysius  of  Alexandria  on  the 
Apocalypse,  58,  181, 

Doctrine,  definition  of,  216,  272  f. ; 
types  of,  in  New  Testament, 
265  f. ;  apostolic  tradition  of,  34  ; 
in  Christian  Missions,  300;  de- 
velopment of,  307  f.;  Hellenic 
influence  upon,  284  f.;  287  f. 

Doctrinal  forms,  variety  of,  280  ff. 

Documents,  authority  of,  20. 


INDEX 


365 


Dogma,  definition  of,  273/.;  his- 
tory of,  274. 

Ebionism,  269. 

Elders  in  early  church,  239. 

End  of  world,  expectation  of,  16. 

Enoch,  Book  of,  57. 

Ephesians,  Epistles  to,  of  Paul.  49 ; 
of  Ignatius,  54. 

Epiphanius,  183. 

Episcopate,  historic  right  of  255. 

Epistles,  in  Muratori  Fragment, 
126  f. 

Erasmus,  193. 

Eucharist,  celebration  of,  231,  233, 
236,  247,  251. 

Eusebius,  life  and  works,  175  f. ; 
Canon  of,  177  f. ;  threefold  classi- 
fication, 178. 

Fathers,  ecclesiastical,  35. 
Fourth  Gospel,  63  ff.;  influence  in 
second  century,  268. 

Gelasian  decree,  162. 

Gentile  societies,  influence  upon  or- 
ganization of  church,  221,  224  ff. 

Gentiles  and  the  Old  Testament,  18. 

Gnostics,  their  secret  tradition,  100; 
their  teaching,  284,  291 ;  and  the 
Old  Testament,  99;  and  New 
Testament  writings,  100;  and 
the  bishopric,  254. 

God,  the  Father,  belief  in,  279. 

Goethe,  343. 

Gospels,  the  beginning  of  writing 
of,  24 ;  read  in  churches,  24  f. ; 
earliest  authority  of,  9 ;  the  Syn- 
optic, 62;  the  Fourth  Gospel, 
63  ff. ;  local  traditions  of,  68,  71 ; 
according  to  Egyptians,  68 ;  ac- 
cording to  Hebrews,  67 ;  accord- 
ing to  Peter,  69,  144;  choice  of 
four,  71  f.,  117. 

Goths,  161. 

Greek  church,  after  eighth  cen- 
tury, 186. 

Gregory  of  Naziauzus,  183. 


Hamack,  theory   of  development 

of  doctrine,  276. 
Hebrews,  Epistle  to,  authorship  of, 

50;     dispute    concerning,    153; 

final  canonization,  183. 
Heretics  of  second  century,  27. 
Hippolytus,  150;  his  Canon,  151. 
Holy  Spirit,  9 ;  belief  in,  279. 
Hormisdas,  162. 

Ignatius,  54 ;  his  epistles,  54. 

Influences,  unconscious  in  canoni- 
zation, 132. 

Innocent  I,  letter  of,  160. 

Inspiration,  rabbinical  conception 
of,  6 ;  Gentile  idea  of,  6 ;  of  all 
Christians,  55,  104  f.,  316;  Prot- 
estant conception,  196;  modern 
thought  of,  355. 

Interpretation  of  Scriptures,  332  ff. 

Irenaeus,  his  life,  107  f.;  his  teach- 
ing concerning  Apostles,  29, 
109;  his  view  of  apostolic  writ- 
ings, 130;  and  the  four  Gospels, 
73,  108;  and  the  Roman  Sym- 
bol, 295  ;  Canon  of,  109. 

Jerome,  life  and  works,  155  f. ; 
translation  of  Scripture,  156;  Old 
Testament  Canon  of,  157;  New 
Testament  Canon  of,  156  f. 

Jesus,  belief  in,  279;  authority  of, 
10,  21,  263 ;  and  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, 17,  21 ;  his  religious  teach- 
ing, 262;  apprehension  of  him 
in  Gospels,  264;  in  Epistles, 
265. 

John,  Gospel  of,  63  ff.,  268. 

Judaism,  influence  of  in  New  Tes- 
tament, 17  ff.,  266. 

Jiilicher,  on  Pauline  Epistles,  50. 

Justin  Martyr,  his  life  and  works, 
36,  85  ff.;  and  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, 87  ;  attitude  toward  proph- 
ecy, 89 ;  account  of  Christian 
worship,  88  ;  Apostolic  "  memo- 
rials" of  Jesus,  88;  attitude  tow- 
ard Paul,  89. 


366 


INDEX 


Koran,  \\Titing  of,  4. 
Kriiger,  Christian  literature   other 
than  canonical,  41. 

Laodicea,  Council  of,  161,  183. 
Leaders,  Christian,  influence  of,  in 

canonization,  116,  117. 
Literature,  ecclesiastical,  35. 
Lucifer  of  Cagliari,  152. 
Luther  and  the  Canon,  198. 

Marcion,  his  life,  27,  loif.;  and 
the  Old  Testament,  102;  his 
New  Testament,  loi  ff. ;  doc- 
trinal teaching  of,  292;  and  the 
church,  293 ;  his  Canon,  102. 

Marcionite  churches,  293. 

Marcus  Aurelius,  171  f. 

Matthew,  "Sa>ings"  of  Jesus  in 
Aramaic,  62;  Gospel  according 
to,  63. 

Maximilla,  105. 

Mehto  of  Sardis,  apology  of,  95  f. 

Methodius  of  Olympus,  145. 

Michaelis,  J.  D.,  201. 

Mohammed  and  the  Koran,  4. 

Montanism  and  the  Bishopric,  254. 

Montanus,  105  f. 

Motives,  doctrinal  in  canonization, 
119,  124  ff. ;  in  Muratori  Frag- 
ment, 123  ff. ;  in  Irenaeus,  129. 

Muratori  Fragment,  inf.,  123 f.; 
and  the  Shepherd  of  Hermas,  60, 
128. 

New  Testament,  description  of,  3  f. ; 
authority  of,  7,  30;  period  of 
production  of,  4 ;  first  use  of  the 
title.  III,  148  f. ;  devotional  use 
of,  204. 

Nicaea,  Council  of,  175,  184. 

Nicene  Creed,  305. 

Nicholas  of  Lyre,  192. 

Old  Testament,  period  of  produc- 
tion of,  4 ;  prophetical  character 
of,  32 ;  Jesus'  use  of,  17,  21 ; 
Paul's  use  of,  18;   among  Gen- 


tiles, 18  ;  and  the  Apologists,  84; 
rejected  among  Gnostics,  99. 

Organization  of  the  church,  apos- 
tolical, 34,  219  ff. ;  inspiration  of, 
228  f. ;  officers  of,  231,  238 ;  in- 
fluence of  the  Synagogue,  221  f. ; 
of  the  Gentile  societies,  221, 
224  ff. ;  sanction  of,  347. 

Origen,  life  and  works,  145  ff. ; 
his  Canon,  148  ft ;  theology  of, 
306. 

Papacy,  the,  345. 

Papias,  65. 

Paul,  his  use  of  the  Old  Testament, 
18  ;  and  the  Words  of  the  Lord, 
22 ;  his  epistles,  47  ff. ;  his  doc- 
trinal teaching,  266. 

Philadelphians,  Epistles  to,  in 
Apocalypse,  57  ;  of  Ignatius,  54. 

Philippians,  Epistles  to,  of  Paul, 
49 ;  of  Polycarp,  56. 

Plato,  4. 

Polycarp,  Epistle  to  Philippians, 
56 ;  Epistle  of  Ignatius  to,  54. 

Presbyters,  in  early  church,  239. 

Priscilla,  Montanist  leader,  105. 

Priscillaand  Epistle  to  Hebrews,  51. 

Prophets,  in  early  church,  44,  235. 

Protestantism  and  the  Canon,  191, 
200,  216. 

Quinisexta,  184. 

Reading  in  churches,  the  begin- 
ning of  canonization,  25. 
Reason,  responsibility  of,   338    f., 

340. 
Reformation,  the,  and  the  authority 

of  Scripture,  7;  and  the  Canon, 

190. 
Renaissance,  the,  Greek  influence 

in,  190. 
Resch,  on   unwritten    sayings    of 

Jesus,  66. 
Roman  Catholic  tradition,  216. 
Romans,  Epistles  to,  of  Paul,  49; 

of  Ignatius,  54. 


INDEX 


367 


Ropes,   on    unwritten    sayings    of 

Jesus,  66. 
Rufinus,  154. 
Rule  of  Faith,  the,  275,  302,  307; 

attributed  to  Apostles,  271. 

Sayings  of  Jesus,  unwritten,  22,  66. 

Sciii,  Acts  of  Martyrs  of,  97. 

Scribes,  the,  311  ff". 

Scripture,  definition  of,  10 ;  author- 
itative interpretation  of,  317 ; 
Protestants  and  the,  335 ;  mod- 
em study  of,  355  f. 

Seraler,  201. 

Septuagint,  157. 

Serapion  and  the  Gospel  according 
to  Peter,  69,  144. 

Services  for  worship,  writings  read 
in  the,  136  f. 

Seven  churches  of  Asia,  letters  to, 

57- 

Shepherd  of  Hermas,  60. 

Simon,  Richard,  207. 

Smyrneans,  Epistles  to,  in  Apoca- 
lypse, 57 ;  of  Ignatius,  54. 

Sohm,  on  church  government,  229. 

Song  of  Solomon,  116. 

Synagogue,  influence  upon  organi- 
zation of  church,  221  ff. 

Synods,  Carthage,  160;  Hippo,  160. 

Synoptic  Gospels,  62. 

Svrian  church  and  the  Canon,  189. 


Tatian,  his  life  and  work,  36,  83. 90 ; 

the  Diatessaron,  71,  91  f. ;  use  of 

in  Syrian  churches,  93. 
Teachers  in  early  church,  235,  237. 
Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles, 

75  f. ;  authorities  of  the  Christians 

in  the,  76;   (see  Didach6). 
Teaching,  oral,  16. 
Tertullian,    life,    109  ff. ;    and    the 

Apostles,   29;    and  the   Roman 

Symbol,  295. 
Theodoret,  116. 
Theophilus  of  Antioch,  96  f. 
Tradition,  principle  of,  281. 
TPi-pho,  Justin's  dialogue  \\ith.  87. 
Types,  doctrinal  in  New  Testament, 

119. 

Unwritten  sayings  of  Jesus,  66. 

Vulgate,  156,  157. 

Words,  of  Jesus,  as  authority  of 
Christians,  15,  21,  23,  32  ;  and  the 
Old  Testament,  21 ;  citations  in- 
accurate, 23. 

Zahn,  concerning  Tatian,  94;  Mu- 
ratori  Canon,  11 1. 

Zoroastrianism  and  the  canoniza- 
tion, 13. 

Z\singli,  his  Canon,  198. 


Jesus   Christ 
and  the  Social  Question 

An  Examination  of  the  Teaching 
of  Jesus  in  its  Relation  to  Some 
Problems  of  Modern  Social  Life 

By  FRANCIS  GREENWOOD  PEABODY 

Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals, 
Harvard  Universitjf 

i2nio.    Cloth.    $1.50 


••  The  author  is  professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Harvard  Uni- 
versity, and  his  book  is  a  critical  examination  of  the  teaching  of 
Jesus  in  its  relation  to  some  of  the  problems  of  modern  social  life. 
Professor  Peabody  discusses  the  various  phases  of  Christian  social- 
ism in  this  country  and  in  Europe." —  T/ie  Baltimore  Sun. 

"  It  is  vital,  searching,  comprehensive.  The  Christian  reader  wiH 
find  it  an  illumination ;  the  non-Christian  a  revelation." 

—  The  Epworth  Herald, 

"  Discussing  in  '  Jesus  Christ  and  the  Social  Question  '  the  com- 
prehensiveness of  the  Master's  teaching,  Francis  Greenwood  Pea- 
body,  Plummer  Professor  of  Christian  Morals  in  Harvard  University, 
says  that '  each  new  age  or  movement  or  personal  desire  seems  to 
itself  to  receive  with  a  peculiar  fulness  its  special  teaching.  The 
unexhausted  gospel  of  Jesus  touches  each  new  problem  and  new 
need  with  its  illuminating  power.'  "  —  Tke  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat. 

"  A  thoughtful  and  reflective  examination  of  the  teachings  of  JesuS 
in  relation  to  some  of  the  problems  of  modern  social  life." 

—  The  Louisville  Courier-JoumaU 


THE   MACMILLAN    COMPANY 

66  FIFTH   AVENUE,   NEW   YORK 


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